Why did he plead guilty in court and follow it up with remorse about not having enough time to spend with family? If that's what he wants, shouldn't he try to stay out of jail so he can go home with daughter and granddaughter?
Or was he full of shit and just wanted to serve out his sentence tending his flowers and not be pestered to visit his family.
He was pleading guilty - for everything. In other words, for the first time in his life he was taking responsibility.
Considering the character's age, it's doubtful he would've been given any parole before death.
I was expecting the final scene to be some other inmate coming up behind Clint's character who's tending gently and lovingly to the flowers, and stab him in the back with a skiv a few times fast. I really did. He knew way too much, and dangerous drug people don't want to take chances on anybody informing on them. Even if it didn't seem like his character would snitch, drug people are all about themselves and so why take a chance?
shareMorals, maybe. He DID commit the crimes. He was culpable. He discovered the drugs in the truck way back in his 2nd or 3rd run. But instead of stopping right away, he kept going anyways because of the money.
So pleading guilty was probably provoked by his conscience. Since he knew what he did, he probably assumed or knew the case against him was too strong; he wasn’t getting off. Why let the case proceedings drag?
Basically, he would have liked to spend time with his family out of jail. But he knew what he did.