Speaker 1: This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject
Speaker 1: to monitoring and recording exactly a hundred years. That's manly.
Speaker 1: I'm a kid. I didn't do anything, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know that was that was real payingful man, No,
Speaker 1: because my life was discarded as if you know, like
Speaker 1: I was a piece of trash or something, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted
Speaker 1: to do things. I wouldn't commit me crimes. You know.
Speaker 1: That was a very good young man. That is what
Speaker 1: happened in so many cases. The cops have a hunch
Speaker 1: because they're so smart at the scene, they have a hunch,
Speaker 1: and once they act on that hunch, they sort of
Speaker 1: developed tunnel vision and they take off marching in the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. And that happens in so many of these
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. The opening, uh the cell door, and I'll
Speaker 1: walk down stairs. And I actually walked down stairs to
Speaker 1: to be outside. It felt very strange to be, like
Speaker 1: I said, to be walking without no shackles on my feet.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a dream. But then again, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a dream. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason flam. That's me. And today, UM
Speaker 1: particularly excited because we have two amazing people in the studio.
Speaker 1: First of all, the star of our show today, Matthew
Speaker 1: Charles m His story is gonna blow your mind. I'll
Speaker 1: leave it at that for the time being. But Matthew,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. And with him is Kevin Ring,
Speaker 1: who has a remarkable story of his own, um, having
Speaker 1: been imprisoned himself and now being the leader of an
Speaker 1: organization that is very very near and dear to me,
Speaker 1: Families Against Mandatory Minimums, on whose board I have served
Speaker 1: for twenty five years. So Kevin, welcome, Thank you. So Matthew,
Speaker 1: it all starts with you, because you've become sort of
Speaker 1: an amazing symbol of this mandatory sentencing nightmare that is
Speaker 1: a uniquely American problem, you know, and you're here now.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I'm the only one here not in a
Speaker 1: suit and tie, which is sort of ironic. But um,
Speaker 1: that being said, Uh, you don't look like a guy
Speaker 1: who would have been sentenced to thirty five years in prison.
Speaker 1: You look like a guy who would be more likely
Speaker 1: to be since the thirty five years sitting in a
Speaker 1: corporate boardroom. But that's beside the point. So let's go
Speaker 1: back to Tennessee and back to when this where this
Speaker 1: story started, because you weren't wrongfully convicted, but you were
Speaker 1: wrongfully sentenced and more than once. So let's go back
Speaker 1: to the time of the crime and how this all started.
Speaker 1: Back In was arrested on felony drilling a farm valations.
Speaker 1: At the time, there was a warm drug so therefore
Speaker 1: fifty grams and more for crack cocaine allowed you to
Speaker 1: have a citizen range of ten years to life and
Speaker 1: because of the amount exceeding fifty grams, it allowed me
Speaker 1: to be at thirty years to life. And when I
Speaker 1: was sentenced in nineteen ninety six, I received a thirty
Speaker 1: or five years sentence. Then we'll get to that saga, right,
Speaker 1: But what makes your story so newsworthy is the fact
Speaker 1: that you were in for so long for decades and
Speaker 1: then out and thriving on the outside for about two
Speaker 1: years and then put back in. I was incoceprated for
Speaker 1: twenty one and a half years before I was released.
Speaker 1: The first time I went back in did seven more months.
Speaker 1: Once I was sent back and the original thirty five
Speaker 1: years sentence was reinstated, but throughout that process of time.
Speaker 1: The citizen guidelines changed three particular times during that period
Speaker 1: of mind conservation, in nineteen ninety six, in nineteen and
Speaker 1: in two thousand teen, in nine and two thousand it
Speaker 1: actually stated that the sentence that I was serving could
Speaker 1: not even be above twenty years. So therefore, everybody that
Speaker 1: got sentenced after two thousand, which was Book of versus Washington,
Speaker 1: they received the sentence of twenty years for the same offense,
Speaker 1: with the same criminal history and the same career. Fender
Speaker 1: gut Last. The only thing changed was it took away
Speaker 1: the mandatory nature by the sentence and gut Last. The
Speaker 1: Rachel disparity didn't disappear, It didn't completely disappear. It got
Speaker 1: a lord, you know, greatly in two thousand. In two
Speaker 1: thousand ten, Senator Durban sponsored and championed the first mandatory
Speaker 1: sentencing rollback in America in forty years. You know that rollback,
Speaker 1: which I'm proud to say I worked. You know what
Speaker 1: was involved in while it didn't establish parody for crack
Speaker 1: and cocaine, it rolled it back from a hundred to
Speaker 1: one disparity to eighteen to one. UM. Now, this is
Speaker 1: an inherently racist situation because we know that the overwhelming
Speaker 1: majority of crack arrests are people of color, and the
Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of coke arrests are white people. So you
Speaker 1: don't need to be a social scientist to figure out
Speaker 1: what's going on there. I'll say this about Senator Durbin
Speaker 1: because you mentioned him. He recently gave a speech, and
Speaker 1: you don't hear politicians do this, but he said his
Speaker 1: vote for the original hundred to one disparity A lot
Speaker 1: of those guys voted for that at the time because
Speaker 1: it was the height of the drug war. He said
Speaker 1: it was the worst vote he ever cast and that
Speaker 1: he was sorry for it, and that you know, since
Speaker 1: that time he has worked hard to erase it, and
Speaker 1: two thousand ten was the first step in doing that.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it just takes a lot of courage
Speaker 1: to say, you know, we were caught in a moral panic,
Speaker 1: made a mistake, but as an elected ficial, I did
Speaker 1: the wrong thing, and now I'm making amends. Even when
Speaker 1: I went to meet him, he stayed at how he
Speaker 1: was instrumental in the two thousand teen changes as well
Speaker 1: as the ones that took place that released me in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, saying how does you know people? I
Speaker 1: tell people about Matthew's case and they say, both, it
Speaker 1: isn't that double jeopardy. He was in, he was out,
Speaker 1: and he was put back into the same crime. Matthew
Speaker 1: was sent back because the federal judge in his case
Speaker 1: thought that the two thousand ten law applied to him
Speaker 1: and should have benefited him, so he was able to
Speaker 1: cut his sentence. And it turns out the appeals Corps.
Speaker 1: So this was another funny thing about where politics work.
Speaker 1: It was the Obama Justice Department who appealed the judge's
Speaker 1: decision and said no, he should finish serving his thirty
Speaker 1: five years, and then the appeals court agreed, and then
Speaker 1: they sent it back to the judge. And now the
Speaker 1: Trump Justice Department was there, and the judge said, I
Speaker 1: really don't think I should be sending this guy back.
Speaker 1: Are you sure you don't want to drop these charges?
Speaker 1: Because he'd been out for two years and people saw
Speaker 1: him and they said no, send him back. So everybody's
Speaker 1: hands were on this. They could have left him out.
Speaker 1: It was a decision to send him back just because
Speaker 1: of this commitment to you know this this sort of
Speaker 1: like formalism of this rule of law, like, no, that's
Speaker 1: what the sentences. And even though we see that he
Speaker 1: has been rehabilitated and he doesn't need this sentence, we're
Speaker 1: going to send him back anyway. The thing about it,
Speaker 1: you is me just being incoscerated for that period of
Speaker 1: time and seeing others that are incostrated with the same
Speaker 1: amount of time or more based on mandatory minimum sentences
Speaker 1: with no way of having any type of relief. I
Speaker 1: just hope that more changed his forthcomment, Well, what percentage
Speaker 1: of the people that you were in with do you
Speaker 1: are really a menister society? I would say probably, I
Speaker 1: would say sevent five percent having over centers and are
Speaker 1: not a minister society. And I would say fifty percent
Speaker 1: of those people are changed. In February, I have become
Speaker 1: a Christian. It doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are.
Speaker 1: You have a right to justice for all. You have
Speaker 1: a right to be senters for the crime and get
Speaker 1: a punishment that suit for that crime, not to be
Speaker 1: over centers. And the majority of people in there are
Speaker 1: for non valiant offenses, and even some of those that
Speaker 1: have valiant offenses, still they have changed over the years.
Speaker 1: That's what I was speaking about. Either a person changes
Speaker 1: because of their choice to change for themselves or their family,
Speaker 1: or they may have an encounter or spiritual you know,
Speaker 1: awakening like I may have had, or the fact that
Speaker 1: they've just aged over the years and they've just taken
Speaker 1: a real look at their lives. It doesn't take much
Speaker 1: to awaken a person. But the sad part is that
Speaker 1: those people that have been awoken are still awakened into
Speaker 1: thirty years sentences life sentences, and they are non valient offenses.
Speaker 1: We know that in most parts, I would say of
Speaker 1: Western Europe, the maximum sentence you can get for anything
Speaker 1: is fifteen years, you know, and some people say, wow,
Speaker 1: that dangerous guyship. I mean, okay, we can have that
Speaker 1: discussion right there. There may be exceptions, but in general,
Speaker 1: the idea that in Western Europe you can murder multiple
Speaker 1: people and get sentenced to less than half the amount
Speaker 1: of time that Matthew did for you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: a small amount of crack, but it's still we're talking
Speaker 1: about seven ounces, right, and can we put that in context?
Speaker 1: Seven ounces? It would be like five or six sweet
Speaker 1: and low packages, right or um. I don't know how
Speaker 1: much is in an actual you know, sugar package that
Speaker 1: you put in your coffee. But it's you know, it
Speaker 1: would be not far off from that. So it's not
Speaker 1: like you weren't Scarface exactly exactly. And you don't appear
Speaker 1: to be a dangerous society either. I mean from everything
Speaker 1: that I can tell from knowing you for the short
Speaker 1: time that I have, But I can't even imagine your
Speaker 1: perspective going from being one of two point two million
Speaker 1: people in this school log system of America, anonymous, almost
Speaker 1: without hope, and then the next thing, you know, here
Speaker 1: comes Kim Kardashian. Next thing you know, you're being discussed
Speaker 1: in the White House, and you're being discussed in the
Speaker 1: halls of power, and you're actually visiting these places, and
Speaker 1: you're on the front page of newspapers and everybody's knowing
Speaker 1: the name of Matthew Charles. And the reason for that,
Speaker 1: of course, is that you were freed. You were out.
Speaker 1: Anyone could see that you were doing great right, You
Speaker 1: were contributing to society, You're contributing to your community and
Speaker 1: your family. And then what happened during the time that
Speaker 1: I went back for those seven months, once my family
Speaker 1: and friends started telling me that Kim Kardashian West at
Speaker 1: first tweeted about asking the president to release me, I
Speaker 1: do something about my situation. I wasn't all you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And then actually, once I was it
Speaker 1: would be released. And thank her for speaking on my
Speaker 1: behalf and having her hearts and her thoughts concerning me
Speaker 1: throughout my plight. And I was able to go on
Speaker 1: her page and tweet that. And then when she tweeted back,
Speaker 1: God bless you, Matthew, I was like, Wow. And the
Speaker 1: fact that she's speaking out against the mandatory minimum nature
Speaker 1: of the citizen guidelines, all the mass and conceration extensive
Speaker 1: sentences and calling for more criminal justice reform just as
Speaker 1: amazing because voices like hers and people like her, Oh
Speaker 1: I listen to and I'm just thankful for yeah, and
Speaker 1: I am too. And you know, as you know, she
Speaker 1: was on wrongful conviction. We did an episode with her
Speaker 1: and we talked about your case, and you know, she
Speaker 1: really is a passionate advocate. And because I started in
Speaker 1: this work because of a mandatory sentence in case way
Speaker 1: back in thee and once I was found out, I
Speaker 1: was able to make a difference and get this kid,
Speaker 1: Stephen Lennon home I was hooked and I'll never stop.
Speaker 1: I mean, as long as I got breath to breathe,
Speaker 1: I'll keep fighting the good fight. And I feel like
Speaker 1: it's the same thing with her now that she's had
Speaker 1: the experience of working with you and Alice Johnson and
Speaker 1: she's in it now, and you know, having her voice
Speaker 1: is it's just a great, great thing for the movement.
Speaker 1: So and it takes voices like hers, and I'm asking, now,
Speaker 1: what can we do for the laws that are still incocerating,
Speaker 1: and that is it's a common thread. We've recorded about
Speaker 1: eighty episodes of this podcast so far, and I would
Speaker 1: say almost everyone has got the same goal that you do,
Speaker 1: which is to help the others that were left behind.
Speaker 1: I don't know any to come out and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go get what's mine now. No, everybody comes
Speaker 1: out with this passion that is so inspiring and then
Speaker 1: puts so much gratitude to my attitude because everybody wants
Speaker 1: to go and help others and that's the way it
Speaker 1: should be. And because the show is called wrong for conviction,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about that too. Before we
Speaker 1: turn back to Kevin, what percentage of people because there
Speaker 1: were hundreds, if not thousands, of people you've encountered in
Speaker 1: twenty one and a half years in prison. What percentage
Speaker 1: of them do you think we're actually in the sense
Speaker 1: of the crimes for which they were convicted since my
Speaker 1: incoceration in the federal system, I would say, because the
Speaker 1: federal system uses a thing called conspiracy, and in the
Speaker 1: conspiracy it doesn't take any real actual evidence. They can
Speaker 1: just convict you on somebody's testimony. Are what we call
Speaker 1: in the federal prison system as ghost dope. In other words,
Speaker 1: they can give you an amount even though they don't
Speaker 1: actually have that amount, just like even in my case,
Speaker 1: be a two undred sixteen grounds, but the actual drug
Speaker 1: amount that was attributed to me that could factually be
Speaker 1: proven was fifty six grams. Everything else came from hearsay
Speaker 1: testimony that I wasn't able to refute because the government
Speaker 1: was able to get it in under the conspiracy rule.
Speaker 1: So when saying that, I would say, either the people
Speaker 1: that are incarcerated for drug offenses, I would say probably
Speaker 1: sixty of them have been charged with conspiracy are ghost dope,
Speaker 1: and the sad party is a lot of times in
Speaker 1: the federal system they're forced to take complete So in
Speaker 1: other words, the prosecution states to what it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you this amount of time. And normally,
Speaker 1: because the court is bound by at the time, I
Speaker 1: was sentenced to mandator a minimum and this is the
Speaker 1: sentence that has to be imposed, and then the judge
Speaker 1: just actually has the discretion to give you the low
Speaker 1: end the mid of that sent us all the hot hand,
Speaker 1: but it's normally already so hat they just give you
Speaker 1: the low end anyway, you know what I mean. I'm
Speaker 1: not laughing at this fact that they do that, because
Speaker 1: it's sad and disappointing and so in other words, a
Speaker 1: lot of times that is held over the inmates are
Speaker 1: the prisoner's head to where they have to agree to
Speaker 1: a police sent us then come into prison and know
Speaker 1: that all the evidence that they gave against you was fabricated.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times they got it wrong. You know,
Speaker 1: we have this. I think it's an initiative that was
Speaker 1: driven by the Innocence Project called the hashtag guilty plea
Speaker 1: problem because in America, we know the nineties of felony
Speaker 1: convictions are guilty please. And it's exactly I mean, you
Speaker 1: said it very eloquently. That's exactly why it happens, because
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, it's the only rational decision
Speaker 1: you can make. Brian Banks a great example of that
Speaker 1: in California, right pleading guilty to a rape that not
Speaker 1: on even committed. It never happened, but he was advised
Speaker 1: by his attorney like, we're gonna lose, you know, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna get to life, and so he chose, you know,
Speaker 1: the only rational choice. And fortunately eventually it was proven
Speaker 1: that that he was as innocent as could be, but
Speaker 1: it was too late to save him from the sentence
Speaker 1: that he got. That You mentioned something you said about
Speaker 1: these guilty plead problems. So glad the Innocence Project is
Speaker 1: doing that. I've seen a lot of their work on
Speaker 1: it and it's excellent. As you know, every year when
Speaker 1: they released the number of gnorees, there's always a percentage
Speaker 1: who pled guilty. People deny that it happens. Prosecuteur will say, no,
Speaker 1: one innocent pleads guilty. It happens every year. We see
Speaker 1: it now because of every day. Yeah, and we know
Speaker 1: it because they get exhonerated by DNA evidence. And then
Speaker 1: you look back in those cases and you say they played,
Speaker 1: and it's always the saying why did you do it?
Speaker 1: It was a better deal. And I was testifying in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Senate and the great criminologist Mark Lemon said to
Speaker 1: a hostile senator, if the prosecutor said to a person,
Speaker 1: plead guilty and testify as we want, or we're going
Speaker 1: to break your arm, no one would have any problems
Speaker 1: seeing the moral problem with that threat. And yet breaking
Speaker 1: your arm would be a luxury compared to spending thirty
Speaker 1: five years in prison. So when you have a system
Speaker 1: that's sort of incentivizes people to say whatever, do whatever,
Speaker 1: admit to crimes that didn't commit, testivoue against people when
Speaker 1: they didn't see something, you're going to get injustices. And
Speaker 1: so I would even take one further. You can say
Speaker 1: to people, um, please guilty, and we'll give you a choice,
Speaker 1: either break your arm or spend years in prison. I'd
Speaker 1: be investing in the company that makes the casts right
Speaker 1: that company because everybody would take that choice, and I've
Speaker 1: never heard a good comeback for that. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: that choice feels like, is going to do this or
Speaker 1: we have all the leverage in the world and especially
Speaker 1: with mandatory sentences, because right if you say I want
Speaker 1: to go to trial, I think I'm innocent or I'm
Speaker 1: just bullheaded, and at least the judge would have some
Speaker 1: discretion in normal case. Well with a mandatory minimum, if
Speaker 1: the prosecutor brings it and threatens you with that, the
Speaker 1: judge is cut out. Now you get to the end
Speaker 1: of the sentence, you've been convicted, and the judge may say,
Speaker 1: I don't want to give you that punishment, but I
Speaker 1: have no choice. Now. These mandatory sentencing laws are so
Speaker 1: out of step with the rest of the world, the
Speaker 1: rest of the Western world, but almost anywhere in the
Speaker 1: world you can't get these kind of sentences for for
Speaker 1: drug crimes. No, that's right. It's only America who did this.
Speaker 1: We had this crime rise, and we responded with these
Speaker 1: mandatory sentences. No other country did that, and so our
Speaker 1: incarceration rate, you know, grew. I always tell people the
Speaker 1: same thing that from two thousand five, we built a
Speaker 1: prisoner jail in this country every ten days, and that's
Speaker 1: solely to keep up with how many people we were
Speaker 1: throwing into the prisons because of these mandatory sentencing laws.
Speaker 1: The fact that we incarcerate black males in America at
Speaker 1: six times the rate of South Africa at the height
Speaker 1: of apartheid is something that I can actually feel people
Speaker 1: shaking their heads when they hear this, right, and that,
Speaker 1: which is crazy becuse we're not even live so I'm projecting.
Speaker 1: But the you know, the idea that a black man
Speaker 1: in America without a high school diploma has a something
Speaker 1: like a sixty something percent chance of spending a year
Speaker 1: in prison before his thirtieth birthday. What like, I mean,
Speaker 1: people don't talk about this. But the real reason that
Speaker 1: Ferguson erupted, I think most people and most social scientists
Speaker 1: would agree it was not because specifically of Michael Brown,
Speaker 1: but it was because they were arresting people in Ferguson
Speaker 1: for mowing their law in the wrong way, you know,
Speaker 1: for walking down the street without I d I heard
Speaker 1: that in Ferguson the average household had something like four
Speaker 1: outstanding warrants, right, because they were just arresting people for
Speaker 1: just being black, basically, right. And of course there's the
Speaker 1: socioeconomic aspect of this, which is just basically pulling money
Speaker 1: in so many sort of the farious ways from the
Speaker 1: poor community and putting in the hands of certain corporations.
Speaker 1: Who are you know, profiting from this mass incarceration, And
Speaker 1: you know, I hope that listeners will check their portfolios
Speaker 1: and divest from companies. If you have a pension fund
Speaker 1: or anything else that you're involved with and you find
Speaker 1: out that they own stock and private prisons, divest. We
Speaker 1: have to make it known that we're not going to
Speaker 1: be involved in profiting off of caging other human beings.
Speaker 1: It's not okay. A lot of people doing don't know
Speaker 1: they're doing it, so so it's worth taking a look. Well,
Speaker 1: let me give you an example of something that just
Speaker 1: happened this week, and I don't mean to be so
Speaker 1: self absorbed about this. My sixteen year old daughter wanted
Speaker 1: to have a debit card so she could go with
Speaker 1: her friends and not have to always carry cash. So
Speaker 1: we opened an account for her and she's been using
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks, and then we just got
Speaker 1: to notice that her account was overdrawn, which it wasn't.
Speaker 1: They said, we're closing it out and sending you the check,
Speaker 1: and right away I knew what that was because I
Speaker 1: had to co sign for that account. So I called
Speaker 1: Capital One and I said what's going on here? And
Speaker 1: they said, we're going to send you a close that
Speaker 1: check and we'll inform you what this is about. And
Speaker 1: all they did was send the close that check saying
Speaker 1: this account was closed at the customer's request. No it wasn't.
Speaker 1: We didn't ask to close it. And so I had
Speaker 1: to bump around on a million phone calls and finally say,
Speaker 1: I have a felony conviction. Is that why you closed
Speaker 1: her account? And they finally said, yes, the bank has
Speaker 1: made a business decision not to have an account with you.
Speaker 1: So I went to prison for a year and a half,
Speaker 1: as you know, for public ruption charges. My daughter can't
Speaker 1: have an account a Capital One bank. So this is
Speaker 1: a cultural problem. You wouldn't need to do this podcast
Speaker 1: if everyone saw it the way you saw it. And
Speaker 1: we see it right. So part of our problem is
Speaker 1: we're trying to convince our fellow citizens that this is
Speaker 1: the problem. And and look at its tentacles. I mean,
Speaker 1: why can't a sixteen year old girl have a bank
Speaker 1: account because her dad went to prison for year and
Speaker 1: a half for you know, these charges. And that's the
Speaker 1: way it is. And I'm fine, right, I have I
Speaker 1: have a credit union account. I will be fine. I'm
Speaker 1: more fortunate than most. What if you're a single mother
Speaker 1: and you know you your husband had a conviction and
Speaker 1: now you can't have an account for your kids and
Speaker 1: that bank accounts the only chance. So we just penalize
Speaker 1: people in so many ways, prison being the worst of it.
Speaker 1: But you just never get out of the penalty box.
Speaker 1: You don't get occupational licenses to do. You know, people
Speaker 1: who barber in prison, then they can't do it on
Speaker 1: the outside. We just never let people out and we
Speaker 1: punish them. And that's I'd love to point to somebody
Speaker 1: say it's their fault. But we countenance this unless we
Speaker 1: go to say that the politicians, we don't want these
Speaker 1: policies anymore. No, that's that's absolutely right, and you know it,
Speaker 1: it's nuts because all of us want to live in
Speaker 1: a safe society, right, all of us want our ourselves
Speaker 1: and our families to be, you know, able to walk
Speaker 1: the streets. And it shouldn't be that difficult for people
Speaker 1: to understand that since ninety five or more percent of
Speaker 1: people that are in prison right now are going to
Speaker 1: be coming home, the only approach that makes any sense
Speaker 1: is to give those people the best chance possible to
Speaker 1: get back on their feet when they get out. Instead
Speaker 1: we pull the rug out from under them. Then then
Speaker 1: we act surprised when they have to resort to stealing
Speaker 1: something or doing something else because they need to eat.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. You know, in other countries they have recidivism
Speaker 1: rate that's a tiny fraction of hours because they treat
Speaker 1: their prisoners like human beings, and they paved the way
Speaker 1: for them to come out and get back into society,
Speaker 1: where we just put up barriers one after the other.
Speaker 1: I love my country. I was born here. I know
Speaker 1: how lucky I am to have been born here in
Speaker 1: the first place. And it's because I love my country
Speaker 1: that I want to see these things changed. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting moment because this is, at least
Speaker 1: to some extent, the only bipart is an issue right now.
Speaker 1: Right there's such a divide in this country, but on
Speaker 1: this issue there's some alignment. Is it because of the
Speaker 1: fiscal problems that come? Yeah, I think it's more personal
Speaker 1: than that. I think that people use arguments that they
Speaker 1: can justify to their own side. So you hear conservatives
Speaker 1: talking about the cost of prisons and and these things,
Speaker 1: but Ultimately, I think it's a morrible issue for everybody.
Speaker 1: It is a matter of fairness. The system didn't hit
Speaker 1: every community in the same way, so certain communities were
Speaker 1: sensitized to this issue earlier on. But now we have
Speaker 1: this new study from Forward dot US that said one
Speaker 1: out of every two adults in America has had an
Speaker 1: immediate family incarcerated. So that's over a hundred thirteen million Americans.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, I'm self interested. Fams been fighting this
Speaker 1: for over twenty five years, thanks to your help. What
Speaker 1: we're trying to do is take that number. Right. If
Speaker 1: you were a lobbyist and you were trying to influence
Speaker 1: a member of Congress, you'd say, hey, do I have
Speaker 1: any plants in his district? Do I have any constituents?
Speaker 1: We have constituents everywhere across this country. A hundred thirteen
Speaker 1: million people have been affected by this system. What we're
Speaker 1: trying to do is make them advocates, make them part
Speaker 1: of a loud, noisy army that says we can't do
Speaker 1: this anymore. A bad system will breed bad results, and
Speaker 1: we have a bad system that incentivizes the wrong things.
Speaker 1: And so what we're trying to do is get people involved.
Speaker 1: Our particular interest is bringing forward the families who have
Speaker 1: been affected by this. And I think about my situation,
Speaker 1: you know the fact that I wasn't somebody who thought
Speaker 1: he was going to end up in federal prison, but
Speaker 1: when it happened to me, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, the next day, I'm taking my kids to
Speaker 1: the bus stop, and one at a time, neighbors are
Speaker 1: coming up to me over the next week saying, I've
Speaker 1: never told anyone this, but my brother went to prison.
Speaker 1: Somebody else come up and never told you when my
Speaker 1: dad went to prison, and I thought, we're not talking
Speaker 1: about this. It gets the point where I think it's
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln has said, if you want to repeal a
Speaker 1: bad law, enforce it strictly. We've got a point now
Speaker 1: where we're locking everybody up, and so now every community
Speaker 1: is saying, maybe we're doing this wrong. It's almost self
Speaker 1: interest that's got us there. Every family has been touched,
Speaker 1: either directly or indirectly by mass incarceration, you know, and
Speaker 1: in this country the statistics are so insane, like the
Speaker 1: one you just talked about, Like I'm sitting here listening
Speaker 1: to it. I knew that number but it still doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. Write a hundred and thirteen million people,
Speaker 1: what is it. It's not a rite of passage. It's
Speaker 1: nothing to be proud of. It's disgusting. What are we doing.
Speaker 1: All we're doing is like trying to hurt our own people.
Speaker 1: And unless you believe that American people are inherently evil
Speaker 1: and need to be punished differently and more than other
Speaker 1: people around the world, then the only other conclusion you
Speaker 1: can draw is that we're doing it wrong. I believe
Speaker 1: that mass incarcerations, maybe a controversial statement, is the worst
Speaker 1: social policy disaster since slavery. I used to same analogy,
Speaker 1: and I said that's not politically correct because I was
Speaker 1: talking to some inmates and when some prisoners and I
Speaker 1: was like, well, really, whenever in two thousand tens Centisen
Speaker 1: guidelines changed and they said that this was based on
Speaker 1: the racial disparity, crack cocaine, the pot of cocaine, the
Speaker 1: majority of the people that got inconcerted with African Americans.
Speaker 1: Then when it was changed from eighteen to one, but
Speaker 1: those changes were not made retroactive. I did you kind
Speaker 1: of make the analogy of slavery, because I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the slavery was wrong, and then it shouldn't existed.
Speaker 1: So therefore you let the slaves go free. In this situation,
Speaker 1: you're saying, Okay, we acknowledge that it's wrong, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna stop slavery, but we're gonna keep the people slaves
Speaker 1: that's already in there. And that's the way I look
Speaker 1: at retroactivity. Not only did they turned around and change
Speaker 1: the Centisen guidelines themselves to drug tables, So therefore it
Speaker 1: was a clear admission that this was wrong. It was
Speaker 1: the is proportionate to the black community. But yet you
Speaker 1: still had over three thousand people me included that was
Speaker 1: still inconcerated because it was never made retroactive. Uh so
Speaker 1: the first step fact did make those changes retroactive. And
Speaker 1: if I hadn't got out for those two years and
Speaker 1: they was actually able to see me in society showing
Speaker 1: that I had been rehabilitated by society's terms, they did
Speaker 1: never even knew, and I still would have served nine
Speaker 1: or ten more years in federal prison. Whereas I got
Speaker 1: some fellow brothers that I considered my brothers because they're incocerated.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what their race is. A lot of time.
Speaker 1: People say, well, you didn't receive an infraction or distiminary
Speaker 1: report in twenty one and a half years. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: that's fine. To Dan, I'm still a work in progress.
Speaker 1: But these people shouldn't have a long center just because
Speaker 1: they commit a minor infraction or they do something wrong
Speaker 1: in prison for centers that they shouldn't have had anywhere.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that their behavior shouldn't be
Speaker 1: taken into accountability. But any time that you say, okay,
Speaker 1: Charles is in a different category than the rest of
Speaker 1: the prisoners that are in press federal prison, you're sadly mistaken.
Speaker 1: Some of my best examples, some of my best mentors,
Speaker 1: had life sentences, and to me, they were living a
Speaker 1: better example of how to be. Somebody just changed and
Speaker 1: I ever could. And it doesn't matter that I became
Speaker 1: a Christian at that time, and they may not believe anything.
Speaker 1: But once you start looking at it from the perspective
Speaker 1: that he's a Christian, he didn't get it any trouble
Speaker 1: and therefore the wrong that was done him needed to
Speaker 1: be righting. Well, the wrong has done, anybody need to
Speaker 1: be writing right. And it's interesting because talking to Matthew
Speaker 1: and you know, he's a man of faith and everything else.
Speaker 1: I'm a Jewish atheist, right so, but at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I think we all believe in the
Speaker 1: same thing, which is redemption, right and America is supposed
Speaker 1: to be a nation of second chances, and yet we're
Speaker 1: actually the opposite. We are lock him up and throw
Speaker 1: away the key nation. The amount of human potential that's
Speaker 1: being wasted, the people that could be contributing to society
Speaker 1: tax dollars, you know, is the most mundane example. But
Speaker 1: you know, culture and everything else, it's a tragedy, you know,
Speaker 1: in the limited amount of time we have left, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about Families Against Mandatory Minimums. It's some
Speaker 1: of the victories that the organization has won over the
Speaker 1: last couple of years are really phenomenal. F A M
Speaker 1: M dot org. By the way, Fleck blom right, f
Speaker 1: A M M like music music, f A M M
Speaker 1: dot org. I encourage everyone to go to the website,
Speaker 1: sign up, learn more, get involved. But can you talk
Speaker 1: about some of the work and some of the priorities
Speaker 1: of Families Against Mandatory militis right now? Yeah, sure, Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that we've been working on
Speaker 1: at the federal level were included in this first step back,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're the first ones to say it
Speaker 1: was first step back for a reason. It only made
Speaker 1: incremental reforms. But the retroactive change of the crack law
Speaker 1: has been a priority since they passed it in two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten. We thought at the time that was
Speaker 1: a difficult decision and probably for you too, that we thought,
Speaker 1: this isn't retroactive. All these guys whose stories were told
Speaker 1: now aren't going to benefit from this law. It made
Speaker 1: no sense. So it's so glad to see that finally happen.
Speaker 1: What we're seeing is people getting out like Matthew who
Speaker 1: weren't serving twelve or fifteen year sentences and getting a
Speaker 1: couple of year of breaks. There's lifers who are getting out.
Speaker 1: There are people with sentences like thirty or five years
Speaker 1: like Matthews were getting out. So it's been that's been
Speaker 1: incredible changes to the compassionate release rules. We talk about
Speaker 1: a sickness in our culture. We have this just bloodless
Speaker 1: to make people die alone in prison cells, even when
Speaker 1: they didn't get a life sentence. If they fall ill
Speaker 1: while they're in prison, they just can't get out. Because
Speaker 1: no one, you know, their family can't get through the
Speaker 1: bureaucracy to get out of prison. And so there was
Speaker 1: a change in this law that allows families and prisoners
Speaker 1: to appeal denials by the Bureau of Prisons, or if
Speaker 1: they don't get an answer in a timely way and
Speaker 1: they're terminally ill, they can go straight to court. So
Speaker 1: we're starting to see that work out. Another big change
Speaker 1: that we were happy to support was in Florida, there
Speaker 1: was a ballot amendment um. The big one was obviously
Speaker 1: Amendment four, which gave felons the right to vote in Florida,
Speaker 1: so that was hugely important and we supported that. But
Speaker 1: we had another ballot measure because Florida had its third
Speaker 1: highest incarceration rate in the country and had the quirk
Speaker 1: in its constitution that said, even if the legislature wanted
Speaker 1: to make its sentencing reductions retroactive, it didn't have the
Speaker 1: power to do it. So we had to change the constitution.
Speaker 1: So we were able to get that on the ballot,
Speaker 1: and I think partly because of the wake of Amendment four,
Speaker 1: it passed with fifty of the vote. So now in
Speaker 1: Florida we're working on sentencing reforms that will be retroactive,
Speaker 1: so we can get some of the cases that you've
Speaker 1: been helpful on, Jason, So get some of those people out,
Speaker 1: because again we've told stories about people are getting unfair
Speaker 1: sentences and then we changed the law, but it didn't
Speaker 1: benefit them. So now we're working on that. I think
Speaker 1: the next big thing we have to look at is
Speaker 1: these long sentences. Um if you talk about violent offenders,
Speaker 1: or if you get to the specifics of the offense,
Speaker 1: people get nervous. But if you say, how about after
Speaker 1: fifteen years of serving a sentence, no matter what the crime,
Speaker 1: the judge gets to take a second look at you
Speaker 1: and see whether you've been rehabilitated, whether you've just grown
Speaker 1: out of the crime, or whether they've just, on second thought,
Speaker 1: maybe the punishment was too severe. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: pushing forward what would be known as sort of a
Speaker 1: second look provision to get at some of these longer
Speaker 1: sentences because that's really what's driving our incarceration rate. And
Speaker 1: we hope that people realize the more they see people
Speaker 1: like Matthew get out that if you even if you
Speaker 1: don't make an internal change, is he said, people grow
Speaker 1: out of crime. I served time with the guy who
Speaker 1: get ten years for a drug sentence and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: you probably needed two years, and he said, no, I
Speaker 1: needed five. I was a punk, I was a bad guy,
Speaker 1: and I needed to get away from my community, away
Speaker 1: from my family, which brought him into the drug selling.
Speaker 1: He said, I needed some time, he needed to grow
Speaker 1: out of it. Anybody who was in that prison would
Speaker 1: have looked at him though, after those five years and said,
Speaker 1: you can go home now. But we don't have a
Speaker 1: system that allows for it. There's no parole in the
Speaker 1: federal system. So we have to have some way for
Speaker 1: judges to look back at these sentences and get people out.
Speaker 1: So FAM is committed to continuing our work at the
Speaker 1: state level to make sure we get rid of mandatory sentences,
Speaker 1: which are the most absurd in Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, in
Speaker 1: North Carolina. Um, we're making great Jusiana has been incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I think you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: groups doing this, a lot of movement. Our particular interest
Speaker 1: is bringing forward the families who have been affected by this.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's a problem where you know, members of the
Speaker 1: public or the media or lawmakers will see somebody, even
Speaker 1: a guy like Matthew, although I haven't seen it happen
Speaker 1: with Matthew, and they'll say, well, you did something wrong,
Speaker 1: and so there's somehow they're able to not feel sympathy.
Speaker 1: But when you have family members come forward and say,
Speaker 1: you know, my dad made a mistake or my brother
Speaker 1: made a mistake, and they deserve to be held accountable.
Speaker 1: But you don't know what this sentence and this punishment
Speaker 1: is doing to all the rest of us were innocent
Speaker 1: collateral damage. That is very effective. And so when we
Speaker 1: bring those family voices. When Matthew was away, his friend
Speaker 1: Naomi came to our rally last July. She spoke with
Speaker 1: Tennessee senators. She was his advocate. That really does make
Speaker 1: a difference. And it's seeing people in the flesh. We're
Speaker 1: good at punishing others that we don't know, but when
Speaker 1: you see people and I always see this, and you're
Speaker 1: an artistic person, so you'll get this. If somebody said
Speaker 1: to me, what did it for Matthew? It wasn't just
Speaker 1: that Juliete Martin Elliott NPR Nashville wrote a great story.
Speaker 1: It's that she took pictures and when you saw Matthew
Speaker 1: working at a pantry and just saw him living his life.
Speaker 1: You just knew this guy was not a threat who
Speaker 1: needed another decade in prison. You were embarrassed that we
Speaker 1: sent him away for thirty five years. It's like when
Speaker 1: you first were talking earlier, It's like, this guy was
Speaker 1: in there for thirty five years. That makes no sense.
Speaker 1: And so we've got to bring some sunlight to the system.
Speaker 1: And so that's you know, by bringing the families forward
Speaker 1: and meeting with lawmakers and putting them in their face
Speaker 1: and telling those stories. That's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, not only am I not scared of Matthew,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I need to get a hold of his
Speaker 1: tailor looking like a model. I mean, it's like every
Speaker 1: week it's another students. It's crazy, so right, and again
Speaker 1: that's f a MM dot org Families Against Mandatory Minimums
Speaker 1: dot org. We're doing amazing work and we're really winning.
Speaker 1: We're starting to really got on a roll. So now
Speaker 1: it's a great time to join. You know, together we
Speaker 1: can turn this upside down and get back to a
Speaker 1: sane system and free up money for education and healthcare
Speaker 1: and all the other things that we really need instead
Speaker 1: of spending it all unlocking people up, which has costs
Speaker 1: upon costs. Mean, it's amazing. And in New York City,
Speaker 1: the state controllers that it costs a hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars a year to keep somebody in Rikers Island.
Speaker 1: If you break that down to a daily rate, it's
Speaker 1: more than the four seasons on fifty seven Street, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like, excuse me, Like you don't
Speaker 1: have to be an economist to understand that there's something
Speaker 1: really really wrong with that, and no one should want
Speaker 1: to see their tax dollars being spent that way. And
Speaker 1: going back that we do have touched on before. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't forty years ago that we had three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people in prison America. Now we have two point
Speaker 1: two million and women in prison. I mean, we don't
Speaker 1: have time to go into that, but the fact is
Speaker 1: we have four point four percent of the world's population
Speaker 1: we have of the world's prison population. That alone is
Speaker 1: mind blowing, But we have thirty three percent of the
Speaker 1: world's female prison population. Many of those women are mothers,
Speaker 1: and those children will most likely end up in the
Speaker 1: system themselves because we know from decades of research that
Speaker 1: the number one cause of why a child may end
Speaker 1: up incarcerated as if they've had a parent incrce rate.
Speaker 1: It's not education, it's not race, it's not socio economics.
Speaker 1: It's if someone is missing their parents and missing that
Speaker 1: family structure, you know they're going to fall into, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the same traps and uh, it's it's a
Speaker 1: cycle that we need to break in the country will
Speaker 1: be much better off when we do. This has been
Speaker 1: a great discussion. I could talk to you guys for hours,
Speaker 1: but I'm assuming that people who listen and probably have
Speaker 1: other things they want to do with their day as well.
Speaker 1: The good news is my favorite part of the show
Speaker 1: is this part of the show, UM, And here's how
Speaker 1: it works. At the end of each episode, UM, I
Speaker 1: get to take a rest and give everybody a break
Speaker 1: from hearing my voice. And so what that means is
Speaker 1: that I'm going to thank both of you again for
Speaker 1: being here. Kevin Ring, the fearless leader of Families against
Speaker 1: Mandatory Minimums, and of course Matthew Charles, who has been
Speaker 1: tremendous force for change in the in the brief amount
Speaker 1: of time we've been out and I know he's going
Speaker 1: to go on to do great things. So thank you
Speaker 1: again for being here. And now I'd like to turn
Speaker 1: it over to you for final thoughts. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I get to turn my mic off and just listen.
Speaker 1: So Kevin, how about you go first. I'll go first.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be brief because I want Matthew to have
Speaker 1: more time and attention because he deserves it. When I
Speaker 1: first heard about Matthew's case, I was surprised that more
Speaker 1: people weren't working on it, and we jumped in and
Speaker 1: a lot of people, ending with you and Kim Kardashian
Speaker 1: and then the White House, everybody getting involved, and it
Speaker 1: was amazing. What strikes me so much about Matthew is
Speaker 1: his humility and what a decent person he is, and
Speaker 1: how ashamed I am that we had somebody like that
Speaker 1: in prison for as long as we did. And when
Speaker 1: I first met him and he agreed to come to
Speaker 1: DC and meet with lawmakers to think him. We're always
Speaker 1: criticizing policymakers, we have to thank them when they do
Speaker 1: the right thing. And that was a really great visit
Speaker 1: when he came, and when we had a chance to talk,
Speaker 1: he said, what I want to do with my life
Speaker 1: is serve the poor and those single parent households. That's
Speaker 1: what my life is going to be. And when he
Speaker 1: was out, he had worked in a pantry helping families,
Speaker 1: and that tells you all you need to know about him.
Speaker 1: And we had to say, could you not look for
Speaker 1: a job for six months and just help us be
Speaker 1: an advocate. So, you know, we hired Matthew to be
Speaker 1: a fam fellow for the next six months. And we've
Speaker 1: already met with the Tennessee governor of the Florida governor.
Speaker 1: He's met with lawmakers, he's giving speeches, he was on
Speaker 1: panel yesterday, He's in high demand, and it's just illustrative
Speaker 1: of who he is. Even aside from those who want
Speaker 1: to give back on criminal justice reform, he just wants
Speaker 1: to be a positive members community. And we're grateful that
Speaker 1: he is using his voice to help us on this
Speaker 1: cause for now and then he's going to be the
Speaker 1: pride of Nashville when he finishes up. I've worked with
Speaker 1: a lot of people in this area, a lot of
Speaker 1: people who you know, do good things and have been rehabilitated.
Speaker 1: But what has struck me about Matthew's story is that
Speaker 1: he has stayed grounded. He's not looking to be a celebrity.
Speaker 1: He is just looking to use his voice and experience
Speaker 1: and the best possible way. And we're incredibly grateful for
Speaker 1: Thank you. I thank you Jason for having me today. UH.
Speaker 1: I like to say I became known by default due
Speaker 1: to the fact that my circumstances caught media attention and
Speaker 1: therefore people able to hear my story. You hear the situation,
Speaker 1: you say, Okay, this can't be possibly true. Then you
Speaker 1: find out that it is true. Man was released at
Speaker 1: serving twenty one and have years on a non balance
Speaker 1: drug offense. UH, an offense which actually cares now less
Speaker 1: than twenty years. I was given a third or five
Speaker 1: years centis for and that they're not being for Judge
Speaker 1: Kevin Sharp allowing me to go for in two thousand sixteen,
Speaker 1: nobody would even heard of me or my study or
Speaker 1: that I had changed. So I'm grateful that all of
Speaker 1: those spokes in that room we're working at the time.
Speaker 1: But my situation is not isolated from other people situations
Speaker 1: that are still inconcerated, that don't have anybody speaking on
Speaker 1: their behalf that's actually asking how can I get some
Speaker 1: relief from a system that has caused me to feel
Speaker 1: bitter are pressed only because of the sentence, not the
Speaker 1: crime I committed, but the sentence that I was imposed.
Speaker 1: I've seen them, I listened to their studies. I worked
Speaker 1: in a lot of library where they would come up
Speaker 1: to me and asked me to read letters from home,
Speaker 1: whether read from their kids, or their wives or their siblings,
Speaker 1: because they didn't have that educational level. So because I
Speaker 1: worked as an educational two to before I worked in
Speaker 1: a lot library, I was able to make friends with
Speaker 1: some people and help them to write letters back home
Speaker 1: to their families, to their children, as well as read
Speaker 1: their letters to them and what they was receiving from
Speaker 1: their attorneys. And someone was like, I took this plea
Speaker 1: because that I not took this plea, I would have
Speaker 1: been sentenced to this or that, And all of those
Speaker 1: thirds soundeds anonymous to the point that it became it
Speaker 1: was the same. This person pleaded out to what they
Speaker 1: thought was less so that they wouldn't get a larger sentence,
Speaker 1: but yet they weren't even deserving of the sentence that
Speaker 1: they were given. It's just that it was a trap system.
Speaker 1: Whether trap doors are closed and there's no way out.
Speaker 1: If that happened to you, or that happened to your child,
Speaker 1: you will want somebody to speak out on their behalf,
Speaker 1: or you will want some system to change. Well, that's
Speaker 1: all we want as well. They want to be able
Speaker 1: to get out and get back into society and regain
Speaker 1: their dignity. And so I'm thankful that I was able
Speaker 1: to be out for those two years. I'm thankful not
Speaker 1: that I went back those seven months, but during those
Speaker 1: seven months that it took on a whole new realm
Speaker 1: of people looking at my situation to where they were
Speaker 1: also able to present it to the senators and representatives saying, hey,
Speaker 1: the person can change, and we have an example of
Speaker 1: someone who has changed. They would have been able to say, oh,
Speaker 1: he certainly don't need to be there anymore. You've got
Speaker 1: people with like Center says, You've got people with sixty
Speaker 1: years all throughout the federal system, all throughout the state system.
Speaker 1: That's just bigging and praying and hope a full a
Speaker 1: second chance. Even why is deserving of a second chance
Speaker 1: if they've changed, Well, you know, it's great that you're
Speaker 1: here being the spokesperson that you are. And I was
Speaker 1: closed by just quoting uh the Great Brian steven Sue said,
Speaker 1: I believe everyone's better than the worst thing they've ever done.
Speaker 1: Once again, this has been a unique and special episode
Speaker 1: of Wrongful Conviction, and thank you Kevin ring Man was
Speaker 1: against mandatory meadowums and Matthew Charles for joining us. Thank
Speaker 1: you don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a
Speaker 1: proud donor to the Innocent Project and I really hope
Speaker 1: you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and
Speaker 1: helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project
Speaker 1: dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 1: Kevin Awardis. The music in the show is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Grown Full Conviction podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is
Speaker 1: a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one