Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #090 Jason Flom with Matthew Charles

Transcript

#090 Jason Flom with Matthew Charles · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject
0:03
Speaker 1: to monitoring and recording.
0:08
Speaker 2: Exactly eleven.
0:16
Speaker 3: And it hasn't been easy one hundred years. That's man.
0:21
Speaker 3: I'm a kid.
0:21
Speaker 4: I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know
0:25
Speaker 4: that was ah, that was real painful, man, you know,
0:28
Speaker 4: because my life was discarded as if you know, like
0:32
Speaker 4: I was a piece of trash or something, you know,
0:34
Speaker 4: a hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted
0:37
Speaker 4: to do things I wouldn't committing crimes.
0:39
Speaker 3: You know.
0:40
Speaker 4: I was a very good young man.
0:42
Speaker 1: That is what happens in so many cases. The cops
0:45
Speaker 1: have a hunch, because they're so smart at the scene,
0:49
Speaker 1: they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,
0:52
Speaker 1: they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off
0:55
Speaker 1: marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so
0:58
Speaker 1: many of these wrongful convictions.
1:00
Speaker 2: The opening.
1:02
Speaker 1: To sell dull and I'll walk down stave And I
1:04
Speaker 1: actually walked downstairs to be outside.
1:08
Speaker 5: It felt very strange.
1:10
Speaker 1: To be, like I said, to be walking without those shackles.
1:12
Speaker 3: On my feet.
1:13
Speaker 2: I thought it was a dream.
1:14
Speaker 3: But then again it wasn't a dream. This is wrongful conviction.
1:27
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason flamm that's me.
1:31
Speaker 2: And today I'm particularly excited because we have two amazing
1:36
Speaker 2: people in the studio. First of all, the star of
1:39
Speaker 2: our show today, Matthew Charles. His story is going to
1:42
Speaker 2: blow your mind. I'll leave it at that for the
1:45
Speaker 2: time being. But Matthew, welcome to the show. And with
1:48
Speaker 2: him is Kevin Ring, who has a remarkable story of
1:52
Speaker 2: his own, having been in prison himself and now being
1:56
Speaker 2: the leader of an organization that is very very near
2:00
Speaker 2: and dear to me, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, on whose
2:03
Speaker 2: board I have served for twenty five years.
2:05
Speaker 3: So Kevin, welcome, Thank you.
2:07
Speaker 2: So Matthew, it all starts with you, because you've become
2:11
Speaker 2: sort of an amazing symbol of this mandatory sentencing nightmare
2:17
Speaker 2: that is a uniquely American problem, you know, and you're
2:21
Speaker 2: here now.
2:21
Speaker 3: It's funny. I'm the only one here not in a
2:23
Speaker 3: suit and tie, which is sort of ironic.
2:26
Speaker 2: But that being said, you don't look like a guy
2:30
Speaker 2: who would have been sentenced to thirty five years in prison.
2:33
Speaker 2: You look like a guy who would be more likely
2:35
Speaker 2: to be sentenced to thirty five years sitting in a
2:37
Speaker 2: corporate boardroom.
2:37
Speaker 3: But that's beside the point.
2:39
Speaker 2: So let's go back to Tennessee and back to when
2:43
Speaker 2: this where this story started, because you weren't wrongfully convicted,
2:46
Speaker 2: but you were wrongfully sentenced and more than once. So
2:49
Speaker 2: let's go back to the time of the crime and
2:52
Speaker 2: how this all started.
2:54
Speaker 6: Back in nineteen ninety five, I was arrested on felony
2:57
Speaker 6: drilling and farm violations. At the time, there was a
3:01
Speaker 6: war on drug so therefore, fifty grams of more for
3:03
Speaker 6: crack cocaine allowed you to have a sentencing range of
3:07
Speaker 6: ten years to life, and because of the amount exceeding
3:11
Speaker 6: fifty grams, it allowed me to be at thirty years
3:13
Speaker 6: to life. And when I was sentenced in nineteen ninety six,
3:17
Speaker 6: I received a thirty five year sentence.
3:19
Speaker 3: And we'll get to that saga, right.
3:21
Speaker 2: What makes your story so newsworthy is the fact that
3:24
Speaker 2: you were in for so long for decades and then
3:26
Speaker 2: out and thriving on the outside for about two years
3:29
Speaker 2: and then put back in.
3:30
Speaker 6: I was incarcerated for twenty one and a half years
3:33
Speaker 6: before I was released the first time I went back,
3:35
Speaker 6: and this seven more months once I was sent back,
3:38
Speaker 6: and the original thirty five year sentence was reinstated. But
3:41
Speaker 6: throughout that process of time, the sentencing guidelines changed three
3:45
Speaker 6: particular times during that period of mind conserration, in nineteen
3:49
Speaker 6: ninety six, in nineteen ninety eight, and in twenty ten.
3:53
Speaker 6: In nineteen ninety eight and two thousand, it actually stated
3:56
Speaker 6: that the sentence that I was serving could not even
3:58
Speaker 6: be above twenty years. So therefore, aerybody that got sentenced
4:02
Speaker 6: after two thousand, which was Book of versus Washington, they
4:06
Speaker 6: received the sentence of twenty years for the same offense,
4:08
Speaker 6: with the same criminal history and the same career offender gaidelines.
4:12
Speaker 6: The only thing changed was it took away the mediator
4:15
Speaker 6: and nature of the senacing guidelines. The racial disparity didn't disappear,
4:19
Speaker 6: It didn't completely disappear. It got lowered, you know, greatly
4:23
Speaker 6: in twenty ten.
4:24
Speaker 2: In twenty ten, Senator Durbin sponsored and championed the first
4:28
Speaker 2: mandatory sentencing rollback in America in forty years. You know
4:32
Speaker 2: that rollback, which I'm proud to say I worked, you
4:35
Speaker 2: know what was involved in While it didn't establish parody
4:39
Speaker 2: for crack and cocaine, it rolled it back from one
4:43
Speaker 2: hundred to one disparity to eighteen to one. Now, this
4:46
Speaker 2: is an inherently racist situation because we know that the
4:49
Speaker 2: overwhelming majority of crack arrests are people of color, and
4:53
Speaker 2: the overwhelming majority of COC arrests are white people. So
4:56
Speaker 2: you don't need to be a social scientist to figure
4:58
Speaker 2: out what's going on there.
5:00
Speaker 7: And I'll say this about Senator Durbin because you mentioned him.
5:02
Speaker 7: He recently gave a speech, and you don't hear politicians
5:04
Speaker 7: do this, but he said his vote for the original
5:07
Speaker 7: one hundred to one disparity A lot of those guys
5:09
Speaker 7: voted for that at the time because it was the
5:10
Speaker 7: height of the drug war. He said it was the
5:12
Speaker 7: worst vote he ever cast and that he was sorry
5:15
Speaker 7: for it, and that you know, since that time he
5:17
Speaker 7: has worked hard to erase it, and twenty ten was
5:20
Speaker 7: the first step in doing that. But I mean, it
5:22
Speaker 7: just takes a lot of courage to say, you know,
5:25
Speaker 7: we were caught in a moral panic, made a mistake,
5:27
Speaker 7: but as an elected official, I did the wrong thing
5:29
Speaker 7: and now I'm making amends.
5:30
Speaker 6: Even when I went to meet him, he stayed to
5:33
Speaker 6: how he was instrumental into twenty ten changes as well
5:36
Speaker 6: as the ones that took place that released me in
5:39
Speaker 6: twenty nineteen.
5:40
Speaker 2: How does you know, people I tell people about Matthew's
5:42
Speaker 2: case and they say, well, isn't that double jeopardy? He
5:45
Speaker 2: was in, he was out, and he was put back
5:47
Speaker 2: in for the same crime.
5:48
Speaker 7: Matthew was sent back because the federal judge in his
5:52
Speaker 7: case thought that the twenty ten law applied to him
5:55
Speaker 7: and should have benefited him, so he was able to
5:57
Speaker 7: cut his sentence. And it turns out the appeals court.
6:00
Speaker 7: So this was another funny thing about the where our
6:02
Speaker 7: politics work. It was the Obama Justice Department who appealed
6:05
Speaker 7: the judge's decision and said no, he should finish serving
6:08
Speaker 7: his thirty five years. And then the appeals court agreed,
6:11
Speaker 7: and then they send it back to the judge. And
6:13
Speaker 7: now the Trump Justice Apartment was there, and the judge said,
6:16
Speaker 7: I really don't think I should be sending this guy back.
6:18
Speaker 7: Are you sure you don't want to drop these charges?
6:20
Speaker 7: Because he'd been out for two years and people saw
6:21
Speaker 7: him and they said no, send him back. So everybody's
6:24
Speaker 7: hands were on this. They could have left him out.
6:26
Speaker 7: It was a decision to send him back just because
6:29
Speaker 7: of this commitment to you know this sort of like
6:32
Speaker 7: formalism of this rule of law, like, no, that's what
6:34
Speaker 7: the sentence is. And even though we see that he's
6:37
Speaker 7: been rehabilitated and he doesn't need this sentence, we're going
6:39
Speaker 7: to send him back anyway.
6:41
Speaker 6: The thing about it is me just being incarcerated for
6:44
Speaker 6: that period of time and seeing others that are incarcerated
6:47
Speaker 6: with the same amount of time or more based on
6:50
Speaker 6: mandatory minimum sentences, with no way of having any type
6:53
Speaker 6: of relief. I just hope that more change is forthcoming.
6:57
Speaker 2: Well, what percentage of the people that you were in
6:59
Speaker 2: with are really a menace to society?
7:02
Speaker 6: I would say probably twenty five percent. I would say
7:05
Speaker 6: seventy five percent having over sentenced and are not a
7:09
Speaker 6: minister society. And I would say fifty percent of those
7:12
Speaker 6: people are changed. In February nineteen ninety six, I have
7:15
Speaker 6: become a Christian. It doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are.
7:19
Speaker 6: You have a right to justice for all. You have
7:21
Speaker 6: a right to be sentenced for the crime and get
7:23
Speaker 6: a punishment that suit for that crime, not to be
7:26
Speaker 6: over sentenced. And the majority of people in there are
7:29
Speaker 6: for non valient offenses, and even some of those that
7:32
Speaker 6: have valient offenses. Still they have changed over the years.
7:35
Speaker 6: That's what I was speaking about. Either a person changes
7:37
Speaker 6: because of their choice to change for themselves or their family,
7:42
Speaker 6: or they may have an encounter or spiritual awakening like
7:45
Speaker 6: I may have had. All the fact that they've just
7:47
Speaker 6: aged over the years and they just taking a real
7:50
Speaker 6: look at their lives. It doesn't take much to awaken
7:52
Speaker 6: a person. But the sad part is that those people
7:55
Speaker 6: that have been awoken are still awakening to thirty year sentences,
7:59
Speaker 6: life sentences and their non violent offenses.
8:02
Speaker 2: We know that in most parts, I would say of
8:05
Speaker 2: Western Europe, the maximum sentence you can get for anything
8:09
Speaker 2: is fifteen years, you know, and some people say, wow,
8:11
Speaker 2: that dangerous guys. I mean, okay, we can have that discussion, right.
8:14
Speaker 2: There may be exceptions, but in general, the idea that
8:18
Speaker 2: in Western Europe you can murder multiple people and get
8:21
Speaker 2: sentenced to less than half the amount of time that
8:23
Speaker 2: Matthew did for you know, it wasn't a small amount
8:26
Speaker 2: of crack, but it's still we're talking about seven ounces, right,
8:29
Speaker 2: And can we put that in context? Seven ounces? It
8:32
Speaker 2: would be like five or six sweet and low packages, right,
8:35
Speaker 2: or I don't know how much is in the actual
8:38
Speaker 2: you know, sugar package that you put in your coffee,
8:40
Speaker 2: but it's you know, it would be not far off
8:42
Speaker 2: from that. So it's not like you weren't Scarface.
8:45
Speaker 5: Exactly exactly by no means.
8:48
Speaker 2: And you don't appear to be a danger to society either.
8:51
Speaker 2: I mean from everything that I can tell from knowing
8:53
Speaker 2: you for the short time that I have, But I
8:55
Speaker 2: can't even imagine your perspective going from being one of
9:00
Speaker 2: two point two million people in this gulag system of America, anonymous,
9:06
Speaker 2: almost without hope, and then the next thing, you know,
9:09
Speaker 2: here comes Kim Kardashian. Next thing you know, you're being
9:12
Speaker 2: discussed in the White House, and you're being discussed in
9:15
Speaker 2: the halls of power, and you're actually visiting these places,
9:18
Speaker 2: and you're on the front page of newspapers and everybody's
9:22
Speaker 2: knowing the name of Matthew Charles. And the reason for that,
9:25
Speaker 2: of course, is that you were freed. You were out.
9:29
Speaker 2: Anyone could see that you were doing great right, You
9:32
Speaker 2: were contributing to society, you were contributing to your community
9:35
Speaker 2: and your family.
9:37
Speaker 3: And then what happened during.
9:39
Speaker 6: The time that I went back for those seven months.
9:41
Speaker 6: Once my family and friends started telling me that Kim
9:43
Speaker 6: Kardashian Wes had first tweeted about asking the president to
9:46
Speaker 6: release me, I do something about my situation, I was
9:49
Speaker 6: in all you know what I mean. And then actually,
9:52
Speaker 6: once I was able to be released and thank her
9:54
Speaker 6: for speaking on my behalf and having her hearts and
9:57
Speaker 6: her thoughts concerning me throughout my plight, and I was
10:00
Speaker 6: able to go on her page and tweet that, and
10:02
Speaker 6: then when she tweeted back, God bless you, Matthew, I
10:05
Speaker 6: was like, Wow.
10:06
Speaker 5: And the fact that she's speaking out against.
10:08
Speaker 6: The mendatory minimum nature of the sentencing guidelines or the
10:12
Speaker 6: mass incarceration extensive sentences and calling for more criminal justice
10:16
Speaker 6: reform just as amazing because voices like hers and people
10:20
Speaker 6: like her who I listen to, and I'm just thankful for.
10:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I am too. And you know, as you
10:25
Speaker 2: know she was on wrongful conviction. We did an episode
10:28
Speaker 2: with her and we talked about your case, and you know,
10:30
Speaker 2: she really is a passionate advocate. And because I started
10:35
Speaker 2: in this work because of a mandatory sentencing case way
10:37
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety three, and once I was found out,
10:40
Speaker 2: I was able to make a difference and get this kid,
10:42
Speaker 2: Stephen Lenning home. I was hooked and I'll never stop.
10:46
Speaker 2: I mean, as long as I got breath to breathe,
10:47
Speaker 2: I'll keep fighting the good fight. And I feel like
10:49
Speaker 2: it's the same thing with her now that she's had
10:51
Speaker 2: the experience of working with you and Alice Johnson and
10:55
Speaker 2: she's in it now, and you know.
10:57
Speaker 3: Having her voice is is just a great, great thing
11:01
Speaker 3: for the movement.
11:02
Speaker 6: And it takes voices like her And I'm asking, now,
11:04
Speaker 6: what can we do for the Waws that are still incarcerated.
11:07
Speaker 3: And that is it's a common thread.
11:10
Speaker 2: We've recorded about eighty episodes of this podcast so far,
11:13
Speaker 2: and I would say almost everyone has got the same
11:16
Speaker 2: goal that you do, which is to help the others
11:18
Speaker 2: that were left behind. Yes, I don't know any to
11:20
Speaker 2: come out and go, okay, I'm gonna go get what's
11:22
Speaker 2: mine now. No, everybody comes out with this passion that
11:26
Speaker 2: is so inspiring and then put so much gratitude to
11:28
Speaker 2: my attitude because everybody wants to go and help others
11:31
Speaker 2: and that's the way it should be. And because the
11:33
Speaker 2: show is called wrong for conviction, I wanted to ask
11:35
Speaker 2: you about that too before we turn back to Kevin,
11:38
Speaker 2: what percentage of the people, Because there were hundreds, if
11:40
Speaker 2: not thousands of people you encountered in twenty one and
11:42
Speaker 2: a half years in prison, what percentage of them do
11:45
Speaker 2: you think were actually in the scent of the crimes
11:46
Speaker 2: for which they were convicted.
11:47
Speaker 6: Since my incarceration in the federal system, I would say,
11:51
Speaker 6: because the federal system uses a thing called conspiracy, and
11:55
Speaker 6: in the conspiracy it doesn't take any real actual evidence.
11:59
Speaker 6: They can just convict you on somebody's testimony or what
12:02
Speaker 6: we call in the federal prison system as ghost dope.
12:04
Speaker 5: In other words, they can give you.
12:06
Speaker 6: An amount even though they don't actually have that amount,
12:09
Speaker 6: just like even in my case of being two hundred
12:11
Speaker 6: and sixteen grams, but the actual drug amount that was
12:14
Speaker 6: attributed to me that could actually be proven was fifty
12:17
Speaker 6: six grams. Everything else came from hearsay testimony that I
12:21
Speaker 6: wasn't able to refute because the government was able to
12:23
Speaker 6: get it in under.
12:24
Speaker 5: The conspiracy rule.
12:26
Speaker 6: So in saying that, I would say, either the people
12:29
Speaker 6: that are incarcerated for drug offenses, I would say probably
12:33
Speaker 6: sixty to seventy percent of them have been charged with
12:37
Speaker 6: conspiracy or ghost dope. And the sad part is a
12:41
Speaker 6: lot of times in the federal system they're forced to
12:43
Speaker 6: take complete So in other words, the prosecution states to
12:46
Speaker 6: where it doesn't matter, I'm going to give you this
12:48
Speaker 6: amount of time. And normally, because the court is bound
12:51
Speaker 6: by at the time, I was sentence to mandator minimum
12:54
Speaker 6: and this is the sentence that has to be imposed,
12:56
Speaker 6: and then the judge just actually has the discretion to
12:59
Speaker 6: give you the low end. The mid of that centers
13:02
Speaker 6: are the hoigh end, but it's normally already so hot,
13:06
Speaker 6: they just give you the low end anyway, you know
13:08
Speaker 6: what I mean. I'm not laughing at this fact that
13:10
Speaker 6: they do that, because it's sad and disappointing, and so
13:14
Speaker 6: in other words, a lot of times that is held
13:16
Speaker 6: over the inmates or the prisoner's head to where they
13:19
Speaker 6: have to agree to a police sentence then come into
13:21
Speaker 6: prison and know that all the evidence that they gave
13:25
Speaker 6: against you was fabricated. So a lot of times they
13:27
Speaker 6: got it wrong.
13:28
Speaker 3: You know, we have this.
13:29
Speaker 2: I think it's an initiative that was driven by the
13:30
Speaker 2: Innocence Project called the hashtag guilty plea problem because in America,
13:35
Speaker 2: we know that ninety six percent of felony convictions are guilty. Please,
13:38
Speaker 2: And it's exactly I mean, you said it very eloquently.
13:41
Speaker 2: That's exactly why it happens because for a lot of people,
13:44
Speaker 2: it's the only rational decision you can make. Brian Banks
13:48
Speaker 2: a great example of that in California, right plead it
13:50
Speaker 2: guilty to a rape that not onlyven committed, it never happened.
13:53
Speaker 3: But he was advised by his.
13:55
Speaker 2: Attorney like, we're going to lose, you know, and you're
13:57
Speaker 2: going to get twenty five to life. And so he
14:00
Speaker 2: chose the only rational choice and fortunately eventually it was
14:05
Speaker 2: proven that he was as innocent as could be, but
14:08
Speaker 2: it was too late to save him from the sentence
14:10
Speaker 2: that he got.
14:11
Speaker 7: Echull mentioned something you said about these guilty plead problem.
14:14
Speaker 7: I'm so glad the Nisence Project is doing that. I've
14:16
Speaker 7: seen a lot of their work on it and it's excellent.
14:18
Speaker 7: As you know, every year when they release the number
14:20
Speaker 7: of exanarees, there's always a percentage who pled guilty. People
14:24
Speaker 7: deny that that happens. Prosecutor will say, no, one innocent
14:26
Speaker 7: pleads guilty. It happens every year. We see it now
14:29
Speaker 7: because of every day, Yeah, and we know it because
14:32
Speaker 7: they get exonerated by DNA evidence. And then you look
14:34
Speaker 7: back at those cases and you say they pled and
14:36
Speaker 7: it's always saying, why did you do it? It was a
14:38
Speaker 7: better deal. And I was testifying in Pennsylvania Senate and
14:41
Speaker 7: a great criminologist, Mark Clemens, said to a hostile senator,
14:46
Speaker 7: if the prosecutor said to a person, plead guilty and
14:50
Speaker 7: testify as we want, or we're going to break your arm,
14:53
Speaker 7: no one would have any problem seeing the moral problem
14:56
Speaker 7: with that threat. And yet breaking your arm would be
15:00
Speaker 7: a luxury compared to spending thirty five years in prison.
15:03
Speaker 7: So when you have a system that sort of incentivizes
15:06
Speaker 7: people to say whatever, do whatever, admit to crimes that
15:10
Speaker 7: didn't commit, testify against people when they didn't see something,
15:13
Speaker 7: you're going to get injustices.
15:15
Speaker 3: And so right, I would even take one step further.
15:16
Speaker 2: You can say to people, plead guilty, and will give
15:19
Speaker 2: you a choice, either break your arm or spend fifteen
15:21
Speaker 2: twenty thirty five years in prison. I'd be investing in
15:23
Speaker 2: the company that makes the casts right stock in that company,
15:27
Speaker 2: because everybody would take that choice.
15:29
Speaker 7: And I've never heard a good comeback for that. That's
15:31
Speaker 7: exactly what that choice feels like, is going to do
15:34
Speaker 7: this or we have all the leverage in the world,
15:36
Speaker 7: and especially with mandatory sentences, because right if you say
15:40
Speaker 7: I want to go to trial, I think I'm innocent
15:42
Speaker 7: or I'm just bullheaded, and at least the judge would
15:44
Speaker 7: have some discretion in normal case, well with a mandatory minimum,
15:47
Speaker 7: if the prosecutor brings it and threatens you with that,
15:49
Speaker 7: the judge is cut out. Now you get to the
15:51
Speaker 7: end of the sentence, you've been convicted, and the judge
15:53
Speaker 7: may say, I don't want to give you that punishment,
15:55
Speaker 7: but I have no choice. Now.
15:56
Speaker 2: These mandatory sentencing laws are so out of step with
16:01
Speaker 2: the rest of the world, the rest of the Western world,
16:04
Speaker 2: but almost anywhere in the world you can't get these
16:06
Speaker 2: kind of sentences for drug crimes. No, that's right.
16:09
Speaker 7: It's only America who did this. We had this crime rise,
16:11
Speaker 7: and we responded with these mandatory sentences. No other country
16:14
Speaker 7: did that, and so our incarceration rate, you know, grew
16:17
Speaker 7: six hundred percent.
16:19
Speaker 5: I always tell.
16:19
Speaker 7: People the same thing that from nineteen ninety to two
16:22
Speaker 7: thousand and five, we built a prisoner jail in this
16:24
Speaker 7: country every ten days and that's solely to keep up
16:28
Speaker 7: with how many people we were throwing into the prisons
16:31
Speaker 7: because of these mandatory sentencing laws.
16:40
Speaker 2: The fact that we incarcerate black males in America at
16:45
Speaker 2: six times the rate of South Africa at the height
16:47
Speaker 2: of apartheid is something that I can actually feel people
16:51
Speaker 2: shaking their heads when they hear this, right, and which
16:53
Speaker 2: is crazy because we're not even live so I'm projecting,
16:56
Speaker 2: but you know, the idea that a black man in
17:00
Speaker 2: America without a high school diploma has a something like
17:04
Speaker 2: a sixty percent chance of spending a year in prison
17:06
Speaker 2: before his thirtieth birthday.
17:08
Speaker 3: What like, I mean, people don't talk about this.
17:12
Speaker 2: But the real reason that Ferguson erupted, I think most
17:15
Speaker 2: people and most social scientists would agree, was not because
17:19
Speaker 2: specifically of Michael Brown, but it was because they were
17:23
Speaker 2: arresting people in Ferguson for mowing their law the wrong way,
17:26
Speaker 2: you know, for.
17:26
Speaker 3: Walking down the street without ID.
17:28
Speaker 2: I heard that in Ferguson the average household had something
17:31
Speaker 2: like four outstanding warrants, right, because they were just arresting
17:36
Speaker 2: people for just being black, basically, right.
17:38
Speaker 3: And of course there's.
17:39
Speaker 2: The socioeconomic aspect of this which is just basically pulling
17:44
Speaker 2: money in so many sort of defarious ways from the
17:48
Speaker 2: poor community and putting in the hands of certain corporations
17:52
Speaker 2: who are you know, profiting from this mass incarceration.
17:56
Speaker 3: And you know, I.
17:56
Speaker 2: Hope that listeners will check their portfolios and divest from companies.
18:01
Speaker 2: If you have a pension fund or anything else that
18:03
Speaker 2: you're involved with and you find out that they own
18:05
Speaker 2: stock in private prisons, divest. We have to make it
18:08
Speaker 2: known that we're not going to be involved in profiting
18:12
Speaker 2: off of.
18:12
Speaker 3: Caging other human beings. It's not okay.
18:14
Speaker 2: A lot of people do it don't know they're doing it,
18:16
Speaker 2: so it's worth taking a look.
18:17
Speaker 7: Well, let me give you an example of something that
18:18
Speaker 7: just happened this week, and I don't mean to be
18:20
Speaker 7: so self absorbed about this. My sixteen year old daughter
18:23
Speaker 7: wanted to have a debit card so she could go
18:25
Speaker 7: out with her friends and not have to always carry cash.
18:26
Speaker 7: So we opened an account for her and she's been
18:29
Speaker 7: using it for a couple of weeks, and then we
18:31
Speaker 7: just got to notice that her account was overdrawn, which
18:33
Speaker 7: it wasn't. They said, we're closing it out and sending
18:35
Speaker 7: you the check and right away. I knew what that
18:38
Speaker 7: was because I had to co sign for that account.
18:41
Speaker 7: So I called Capital One and I said what's going
18:44
Speaker 7: on here? And they said, we're going to send you
18:45
Speaker 7: a close out check and we'll inform you what this
18:47
Speaker 7: is about. And all they did was send the close
18:49
Speaker 7: out check saying this account was closed at the customer's request.
18:52
Speaker 3: No it wasn't.
18:52
Speaker 2: We didn't ask to close it.
18:54
Speaker 7: And so I had to bump around on a million
18:56
Speaker 7: phone calls and finally say, I have a felony conviction.
19:00
Speaker 7: Is that why you closed her account? And they finally
19:03
Speaker 7: said yes, the bank has made a business decision not
19:06
Speaker 7: to have an account with you. So I went to
19:08
Speaker 7: prison for a year and a half, as you know,
19:10
Speaker 7: for public corruption charges. My daughter can't have an account
19:14
Speaker 7: a Capital and bank. So this is a cultural problem.
19:17
Speaker 7: You wouldn't need to do this podcast if everyone saw
19:19
Speaker 7: it the way you saw it, and we see it right.
19:22
Speaker 7: So part of our problem is we're trying to convince
19:24
Speaker 7: our fellow citizens that this is the problem, and look
19:27
Speaker 7: at its tentacles. I mean, why can't a sixteen year
19:29
Speaker 7: old girl have a bank account because her dad went
19:31
Speaker 7: to prison for a year and a half for you know,
19:33
Speaker 7: these charges, and that's the way it is. And I'm fine, right,
19:36
Speaker 7: I have a credit Union account, will be fine. I'm
19:39
Speaker 7: more fortunate than most. What if you're a single mother
19:42
Speaker 7: and you know your husband had a conviction and now
19:45
Speaker 7: you can't have an account for your kids and that
19:47
Speaker 7: bank account's the only chance. So we just penalize people
19:51
Speaker 7: in so many ways, prison being the worst of it.
19:53
Speaker 7: But you just never get out of the penalty box.
19:56
Speaker 7: You don't get occupational licenses to do. You know, people
19:59
Speaker 7: who barber in prison, then they can't do it on
20:01
Speaker 7: the outside. We just never let people out and we
20:04
Speaker 7: punish them. And that's I'd love to point to somebody
20:06
Speaker 7: say it's their fault. But we countenance this unless we
20:09
Speaker 7: go to say to the politicians, we don't want these
20:11
Speaker 7: policies anymore.
20:12
Speaker 2: No, that's absolutely right, And you know it's nuts, because
20:17
Speaker 2: all of us want to live in a safe society, right,
20:20
Speaker 2: all of us want ourselves and our families to be
20:24
Speaker 2: able to walk the streets. And it shouldn't be that
20:27
Speaker 2: difficult for people to understand that since ninety five or
20:31
Speaker 2: more percent of people that are in prison right now
20:33
Speaker 2: are going to be coming home The only approach that
20:37
Speaker 2: makes any sense is to give those people the best
20:41
Speaker 2: chance possible to get back on their feet when they
20:44
Speaker 2: get out. Instead, we pull the rug out from under them,
20:47
Speaker 2: and then we act surprised when they have to resort
20:51
Speaker 2: to stealing something or doing something else because they need
20:54
Speaker 2: to eat. It's amazing. You know, in other countries they
20:56
Speaker 2: have a recidivism rate that's a tiny fraction of because
21:00
Speaker 2: they treat their prisoners like human beings and they pave
21:05
Speaker 2: the way for them to come out and get back
21:07
Speaker 2: into society, where we just put up barriers one after
21:10
Speaker 2: the other.
21:11
Speaker 3: I love my country. I was born here.
21:13
Speaker 2: I know how lucky I am to have been born
21:14
Speaker 2: here in the first place. And it's because I love
21:17
Speaker 2: my country that I want to see these things changed.
21:20
Speaker 2: You know, it's a very interesting moment because this is,
21:23
Speaker 2: at least to some extent, the only bipart is an
21:26
Speaker 2: issue right now. Right there's such a divide in this country,
21:29
Speaker 2: but on this issue there's some alignment. Is it because
21:33
Speaker 2: of the fiscal problems that go?
21:35
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it's more personal than that. I think
21:38
Speaker 7: that people use arguments that they can justify to their
21:41
Speaker 7: own side. So you hear conservatives talking about the cost
21:44
Speaker 7: of prisons and these things, But ultimately, I think it's
21:47
Speaker 7: a mor of issue for everybody. It is a matter
21:49
Speaker 7: of fairness. The system didn't hit every community in the
21:52
Speaker 7: same way, so certain communities were sensitized to this issue
21:56
Speaker 7: earlier on. But now we have this new study from
21:58
Speaker 7: Forward dot US that said one out of every two
22:01
Speaker 7: adults in America has had an immediate family incarcerated. So
22:05
Speaker 7: that's over one hundred and thirteen million Americans. I mean,
22:08
Speaker 7: obviously I'm self interested. FAM has been fighting this for
22:11
Speaker 7: over twenty five years thanks to your help. What we're
22:14
Speaker 7: trying to do is take that number.
22:16
Speaker 3: Right.
22:16
Speaker 7: If you were a lobbyist and you were trying to
22:18
Speaker 7: influence a member of Congress, you'd say, hey, do I
22:19
Speaker 7: have any plants in his district? Do I have any constituents.
22:23
Speaker 7: We have constituents everywhere across this country, one hundred and
22:26
Speaker 7: thirteen million people who have been affected by the system.
22:28
Speaker 7: What we're trying to do is make them advocates, make
22:31
Speaker 7: them a part of a loud, noisy army that says
22:33
Speaker 7: we can't do this anymore. A bad system will breed
22:36
Speaker 7: bad results, and we have a bad system that incentivizes
22:39
Speaker 7: the wrong things. And so what we're trying to do
22:42
Speaker 7: is get people involved. Our particular interest is bringing forward
22:46
Speaker 7: the families who've.
22:47
Speaker 3: Been affected by this.
22:48
Speaker 7: And I think about my situation, you know the fact
22:50
Speaker 7: that I wasn't somebody who thought who was going to
22:52
Speaker 7: end up in federal prison, but when it happened to me,
22:55
Speaker 7: and all of a sudden, you know, the next day,
22:56
Speaker 7: I'm taking my kids to the bus stop, and one
22:58
Speaker 7: at a time, neighbors are coming up to me over
23:00
Speaker 7: the next week saying, I've never told anyone this, but
23:03
Speaker 7: my brother went to prison. Somebody else come up, Hey,
23:05
Speaker 7: I never told you when my dad went to prison,
23:07
Speaker 7: and I thought, we're not talking about this. It gets
23:10
Speaker 7: to the point where I think it's Abraham Lincoln and said,
23:12
Speaker 7: if you want to repeal a bad law, enforce it strictly.
23:15
Speaker 7: We've got a point out where we're locking everybody up.
23:18
Speaker 7: And so now every community is saying, maybe we're doing
23:21
Speaker 7: this wrong. It's almost self interest that Scott is there.
23:24
Speaker 7: Every family has been touched either directly or indirectly by mass.
23:27
Speaker 2: Incarceration, you know, and in this country the statistics are
23:31
Speaker 2: so insane, like the one you just talked about. Like
23:33
Speaker 2: I'm sitting here listening to it. I knew that number,
23:35
Speaker 2: but it still doesn't make any sense. Right, one hundred
23:37
Speaker 2: and thirteen million people?
23:39
Speaker 3: What is it?
23:39
Speaker 2: It's not a right of passage, It's nothing to be
23:42
Speaker 2: proud of. It's disgusting. What are we doing. All we're
23:45
Speaker 2: doing is like trying to hurt our own people. And
23:48
Speaker 2: unless you believe that American people are inherently evil and
23:51
Speaker 2: need to be punished differently and more than other people
23:54
Speaker 2: around the world, then the only other conclusion you can
23:57
Speaker 2: draw is that we're doing it wrong. I believe that
24:01
Speaker 2: mass incarcerations, may be a controversial statement, is the worst
24:05
Speaker 2: social policy disasters since slavery.
24:08
Speaker 6: I used the same analogy, and I said that's not
24:10
Speaker 6: politically correct because I was talking to some inmates when
24:13
Speaker 6: some prisoners, and I was like, well, really, whenever in
24:16
Speaker 6: twenty ten, senacing guidelines changed and they said that this
24:19
Speaker 6: was based on the racial disparity crack cocaine and powder cocaine.
24:23
Speaker 6: The majority of the people that got incarcerated with African Americans.
24:27
Speaker 6: Then when it was changed from eighteen to one, but
24:29
Speaker 6: those changes were.
24:30
Speaker 5: Not made retroactive.
24:32
Speaker 6: I did you kind of make the analogy of slavery,
24:34
Speaker 6: because I was like, well, you know that slavery was
24:37
Speaker 6: wrong and that it shouldn't existed, so therefore you let
24:40
Speaker 6: the slaves go free in this situation, you saying, Okay,
24:42
Speaker 6: we acknowledged that it's wrong, and we're going to stop slavery,
24:46
Speaker 6: but we're going to keep the people slaves that's already
24:48
Speaker 6: in there. And that's the way I look at retroactivity.
24:51
Speaker 6: Not only did they turned around and change the sentencing
24:53
Speaker 6: guidelines themselves, the drug tables, So therefore it was a
24:57
Speaker 6: clear admission that this was wrong, it was proportionate to
25:00
Speaker 6: the black community, but yet you still had over three
25:03
Speaker 6: thousand people me included, that were still incarcerated because it
25:06
Speaker 6: was never made retroactive. So the First Step Act did
25:10
Speaker 6: make those changes retroactive. And if I hadn't got out
25:13
Speaker 6: for those two years and they was actually able to
25:15
Speaker 6: see me in society showing that I had been rehabilitated
25:20
Speaker 6: by society's terms, they did never even knew it, and
25:22
Speaker 6: I still would have served nine or ten more years
25:25
Speaker 6: in federal prison. Whereas I got some fellow brothers that
25:29
Speaker 6: I consider my brothers because they're incarcerated and doesn't matter
25:32
Speaker 6: what their race is. A lot of time people say, well,
25:35
Speaker 6: you didn't receive an infraction or diitionary report in twenty
25:38
Speaker 6: one and a half years. Well, okay, that's fine, and
25:40
Speaker 6: now I'm still a work in progress. But these people
25:43
Speaker 6: shouldn't have a long sentence just because they commit a
25:46
Speaker 6: minor infraction or they do something wrong in prison for
25:49
Speaker 6: a sentence that they shouldn't have had anywhere. I don't
25:51
Speaker 6: want to say that their behavior shouldn't be taken into accountability.
25:54
Speaker 6: But anytime that you say, okay, charges in a different
25:57
Speaker 6: category than the rest of the prisoners that are in
25:59
Speaker 6: frension in federal prison, you're sadly mistaken. Some of my
26:03
Speaker 6: best examples, some of my best mentors, had life sentences,
26:07
Speaker 6: and to me, they were living a better example of
26:10
Speaker 6: how to be somebody just changed than I ever could.
26:13
Speaker 6: And it doesn't matter that I became a Christian at
26:15
Speaker 6: that time. And they may not believe anything, but once
26:18
Speaker 6: you start looking at it from the perspective that he's
26:20
Speaker 6: a Christian, he didn't get in any trouble and therefore
26:24
Speaker 6: the wrong that was done to him needed to be righted. Well,
26:27
Speaker 6: the wrong has done anybody need to be writing, right.
26:29
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because talking to Matthew and you know,
26:31
Speaker 2: he's a man of faith and everything else. I'm a
26:33
Speaker 2: Jewish atheist, right so, but at the end of the day,
26:36
Speaker 2: I think we all believe in the same thing, which
26:38
Speaker 2: is redemption, right, and America is supposed to be a
26:41
Speaker 2: nation of second chances, and yet we're actually the opposite.
26:45
Speaker 2: We are lock them up and throw away the key nation.
26:48
Speaker 2: The amount of human potential that's being wasted, the people
26:51
Speaker 2: that could be contributing to society tax dollars, you know,
26:55
Speaker 2: is the most mundane example, but you know, culture and
26:59
Speaker 2: everything else, it's a tragedy, you know. In the limited
27:16
Speaker 2: amount of time we have left, I want to talk
27:18
Speaker 2: about Families Against Mandatory Minimums. It's some of the victories
27:21
Speaker 2: that the organization has won over the last couple of
27:24
Speaker 2: years are really phenomenal.
27:27
Speaker 3: Famm dot org.
27:29
Speaker 2: By the way, fle like blom Right, fam like music music,
27:34
Speaker 2: Famm dot org. I encourage everyone to go to the website,
27:37
Speaker 2: sign up, learn more, get involved. But can you talk
27:40
Speaker 2: about some of the work.
27:41
Speaker 3: And some of the priorities of Families Against Manatory Minimums
27:43
Speaker 3: right now? Yeah?
27:44
Speaker 7: Sure, Well, a lot of the things that we've been
27:46
Speaker 7: working on at the federal level were included in this
27:49
Speaker 7: first step back. And you know, we're the first ones
27:51
Speaker 7: to say it was first step back for a reason.
27:53
Speaker 7: It only made incremental reforms, but the retroactive change of
27:57
Speaker 7: the crack ball has been a priority since they passed
27:59
Speaker 7: it in twenty ten. We thought at the time that
28:01
Speaker 7: was a difficult decision, probably for you too, that we thought,
28:04
Speaker 7: this isn't retroactive. All these guys whose stories we told
28:08
Speaker 7: now aren't going to benefit from this law. It made
28:09
Speaker 7: no sense. So it's so glad to see that finally happen.
28:12
Speaker 7: And what we're seeing is people getting out like Matthew
28:15
Speaker 7: who weren't serving twelve or fifteen year sentences and getting
28:18
Speaker 7: a couple year of breaks. There's lifers who are getting out.
28:21
Speaker 7: There are people with sentences like thirty five years like
28:23
Speaker 7: Matthews are getting out. So it's been that's been incredible
28:26
Speaker 7: changes to the compassionate release rules. We talk about a
28:29
Speaker 7: sickness in our culture. We have this just bloodlust to
28:33
Speaker 7: make people die alone in prison cells, even when they
28:36
Speaker 7: didn't get a life sentence. If they fall ill while
28:39
Speaker 7: they're in prison, they just can't get out because no one,
28:42
Speaker 7: you know, their family can't get through the bureaucracy to
28:44
Speaker 7: get out of prison. And so there was a change
28:47
Speaker 7: in this law that allows families and prisoners to appeal
28:51
Speaker 7: denials by the Bureau of Prisons, or if they don't
28:53
Speaker 7: get an answer in a timely way and they're terminally ill,
28:55
Speaker 7: they can go straight to court. So we're starting to
28:57
Speaker 7: see that work out. Another big change that we were
29:00
Speaker 7: happy to support was in Florida. There was a ballot
29:03
Speaker 7: and the big one was obviously Amendment four, which gave
29:06
Speaker 7: felons the right to vote in Florida, so that was
29:08
Speaker 7: hugely important and we supported that. But we had another
29:11
Speaker 7: ballot measure because Florida had its third highest incarceration rate
29:15
Speaker 7: in the country and had the quirk in its constitution
29:18
Speaker 7: that said, even if the legislature wanted to make its
29:21
Speaker 7: sentencing reductions retroactive, it didn't have the power to do it.
29:25
Speaker 7: So we had to change the constitution. So we were
29:28
Speaker 7: able to get that on the ballot, and I think
29:30
Speaker 7: partly because of the wake of Amendment four, it passed
29:33
Speaker 7: with fifty two percent of the vote. So now in
29:36
Speaker 7: Florida we're working on sentencing reforms that'll be retroactive, so
29:39
Speaker 7: we can get some of the cases that you've been
29:40
Speaker 7: helpful on, Jason, So get some of those people out,
29:43
Speaker 7: because again we've told stories about people are getting unfair
29:45
Speaker 7: sentences and then we changed the law, but it didn't
29:48
Speaker 7: benefit them. So now we're working on that. I think
29:50
Speaker 7: the next big thing we have to look at is
29:52
Speaker 7: these long sentences. If you talk about violent offenders, or
29:56
Speaker 7: if you get to the specifics of the offense, people
29:58
Speaker 7: get nervous. But if you say, how about after fifteen
30:02
Speaker 7: years of serving a sentence, no matter what the crime,
30:05
Speaker 7: the judge gets to take a second look at you
30:07
Speaker 7: and see whether you've been rehabilitated, whether you've just grown
30:10
Speaker 7: out of the crime, or whether they've just, on second thought,
30:14
Speaker 7: maybe the punishment was too severe. So we're talking about
30:18
Speaker 7: pushing forward what would be known as sort of a
30:20
Speaker 7: second look provision to get at some of these longer sentences,
30:23
Speaker 7: because that's really what's driving our incarceration rate.
30:25
Speaker 5: And we hope that.
30:26
Speaker 7: People realize the more they see people like Matthew get
30:29
Speaker 7: out that even if you don't make an internal change,
30:32
Speaker 7: is he said, people grow out of crime. I serve
30:34
Speaker 7: time with the guy get ten years for a drug sentence.
30:36
Speaker 7: I said, oh, you probably only needed two years, and
30:39
Speaker 7: he said, no, I needed five. I was a punk,
30:41
Speaker 7: I was a bad guy, and I needed to get
30:44
Speaker 7: away from my community, away from my family, which brought
30:46
Speaker 7: him into the drug selling. He said, I needed some time,
30:49
Speaker 7: he needed.
30:50
Speaker 3: To grow out of it.
30:51
Speaker 7: Anybody who was in that prison would have looked at
30:53
Speaker 7: him though, after those five years and said, you can
30:55
Speaker 7: go home now. But we don't have a system that
30:56
Speaker 7: allows for it. There's no parole in the federal system.
30:59
Speaker 7: So we have to have some way for judges to
31:01
Speaker 7: look back at these sentences and get people out. So
31:03
Speaker 7: fam is committed to continuing our work at the state
31:06
Speaker 7: level to make sure we get rid of mandatory sentences,
31:08
Speaker 7: which are the most absurd in Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, in
31:12
Speaker 7: North Carolina, Louisiana.
31:14
Speaker 3: We're making great st.
31:15
Speaker 7: Uisanna has been incredible. Yeah, and so I think, you know,
31:18
Speaker 7: there's a lot of groups doing this, a lot of movement.
31:20
Speaker 7: Our particular interest is bringing forward the families who've been
31:24
Speaker 7: affected by this. Sometimes there's a problem where you know,
31:28
Speaker 7: members of the public or the media or lawmakers will
31:31
Speaker 7: see somebody, even a like Matthew, although I haven't seen
31:34
Speaker 7: it happen with Matthew, and they'll say, well, you did
31:36
Speaker 7: something wrong, and so there's somehow they're able to not
31:39
Speaker 7: feel sympathy. But when you have family members come forward
31:42
Speaker 7: and say, you know, my dad made a mistake or
31:44
Speaker 7: my brother made a mistake, and they deserve to be
31:46
Speaker 7: held accountable. But you don't know what this sentence and
31:49
Speaker 7: this punishment is doing to all the rest of us.
31:51
Speaker 7: We're innocent collateral damage. That is very effective. And so
31:55
Speaker 7: when we bring those family voices. When Matthew is away,
31:58
Speaker 7: his friend Naomi came to our rally last July. She
32:01
Speaker 7: spoke with Tennessee senators. She was his advocate. That really
32:04
Speaker 7: does make a difference, And it's seeing people in the flesh.
32:08
Speaker 7: We are good at punishing others that we don't know,
32:10
Speaker 7: but when you see people and I alway see this,
32:12
Speaker 7: and you're an artistic person, so you'll get this. If
32:15
Speaker 7: somebody said to me, what did it for Matthew? It
32:16
Speaker 7: wasn't just that Juliette Martin Elliott, NPR and Nashville wrote
32:20
Speaker 7: a great story.
32:21
Speaker 5: It's that she took.
32:21
Speaker 7: Pictures and when you saw Matthew working at a pantry
32:26
Speaker 7: and just saw him living his life, you just knew
32:30
Speaker 7: this guy was not a threat who needed another decade
32:32
Speaker 7: in prison. You were embarrassed that we send him away
32:34
Speaker 7: for thirty five years. It's like when you first were
32:37
Speaker 7: talking earlier, It's like, this guy was in there for
32:39
Speaker 7: thirty five years. That makes no sense. And so we've
32:41
Speaker 7: got to bring some sunlight to the system. And so
32:43
Speaker 7: that's that, you know, by bringing the families forward and
32:46
Speaker 7: meeting with lawmakers and putting them in their face and
32:48
Speaker 7: telling those stories, that's what we're trying to do.
32:50
Speaker 2: I mean, not only am I not scared of Matthew,
32:52
Speaker 2: I'm thinking I need to get ahold of his tailor.
32:56
Speaker 3: Looking like a model. I mean, every week it's another suit.
33:00
Speaker 3: It's crazy.
33:00
Speaker 2: So right, and again that's FAMM dot org Families Against
33:04
Speaker 2: Mandatory Minimums dot org. We're doing amazing work and we're
33:07
Speaker 2: really winning. We're starting to really get on a roll.
33:10
Speaker 2: So now's a great time to join. You know, together
33:13
Speaker 2: we can turn this upside down and get back to
33:16
Speaker 2: a sane system and free up money for education and
33:19
Speaker 2: healthcare and all the other things.
33:20
Speaker 3: That we really need.
33:21
Speaker 2: Instead of spending it all on locking people up, which
33:23
Speaker 2: has costs upon cost.
33:25
Speaker 3: I mean, it's amazing.
33:26
Speaker 2: In New York City, the state controllers said it costs
33:28
Speaker 2: like one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars a year
33:30
Speaker 2: to keep somebody in Riker's Island. If you break that
33:32
Speaker 2: down to a daily rate, it's more than the four
33:34
Speaker 2: seasons on fifty seventh Street, you know what I mean, Like,
33:38
Speaker 2: excuse me, Like you don't have to be an economist
33:41
Speaker 2: to understand that there's something really really wrong with that,
33:44
Speaker 2: and no one should want to see their.
33:46
Speaker 3: Tax dollars being spent that way.
33:48
Speaker 2: And going back to what you have touched on before,
33:50
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't forty years ago that we had
33:52
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand people in prison in America. Now we
33:54
Speaker 2: have two point two million and women in prison. I mean,
33:57
Speaker 2: we don't have time to go into that, but the
33:59
Speaker 2: fact is we have four point four percent of the
34:01
Speaker 2: world's population. We have twenty five percent of the world's
34:04
Speaker 2: prison population. That alone is mind blowing, But we have
34:07
Speaker 2: thirty three percent of the world's female prison population. Many
34:11
Speaker 2: of those women are mothers, and those children will most
34:15
Speaker 2: likely end up.
34:16
Speaker 3: In the system.
34:17
Speaker 2: Themselves, because we know from decades of research that the
34:20
Speaker 2: number one cause of why a child may end up
34:22
Speaker 2: incarcerated is if they've had a parent incarcerated. It's not education,
34:26
Speaker 2: it's not race, it's not socioeconomics. It's if someone is
34:30
Speaker 2: missing their parents and missing that family structure. You know
34:33
Speaker 2: they're going to fall into, you know, some of the
34:36
Speaker 2: same traps, and it's a cycle that we need to
34:40
Speaker 2: break and the country will be much better off when
34:42
Speaker 2: we do. This has been a great discussion. I could
34:46
Speaker 2: talk to you guys for hours, but I'm assuming that
34:48
Speaker 2: people who listen that probably have other things they want
34:50
Speaker 2: to do with their day as well. The good news
34:52
Speaker 2: is my favorite part of the show is this part
34:55
Speaker 2: of the show.
34:56
Speaker 3: And here's how it works.
34:58
Speaker 2: At the end of each episode, I get to take
35:02
Speaker 2: a rest and give everybody a.
35:05
Speaker 3: Break from hearing my voice.
35:06
Speaker 2: And so what that means is that I'm going to
35:08
Speaker 2: thank both of you again for being here. Kevin Ring,
35:11
Speaker 2: the fearless leader of Families against Mandatory Minimums, and of
35:16
Speaker 2: course Matthew Charles, who has been a tremendous force for
35:20
Speaker 2: change in the brief amount of time have been out
35:24
Speaker 2: and I know is going to go on to do
35:25
Speaker 2: great things. So thank you again for being here. And
35:28
Speaker 2: now I'd like to turn it over to you for
35:30
Speaker 2: final thoughts. And like I said, I get to turn
35:33
Speaker 2: my mic off and just listen. So Kevin, how about
35:35
Speaker 2: you go first.
35:36
Speaker 7: I'll go first. I'm going to be brief because I
35:39
Speaker 7: want Matthew to have more time and attention because he
35:42
Speaker 7: deserves it. When I first heard about Matthew's case, I
35:44
Speaker 7: was surprised that more people weren't working on it, and
35:46
Speaker 7: we jumped in and a lot of people, ending with
35:49
Speaker 7: you and Kim Kardashian and then the White House, everybody
35:51
Speaker 7: getting involved, and it was amazing. What strikes me so
35:55
Speaker 7: much about Matthew is his humility and what a decent
35:58
Speaker 7: person he is and how ashamed I am that we
36:02
Speaker 7: had somebody like that in prison for as long as
36:04
Speaker 7: we did. And when I first met him, and he
36:07
Speaker 7: agreed to come to DC and meet with lawmakers to think.
36:09
Speaker 7: And we're always criticizing policymakers, we have to thank them
36:11
Speaker 7: when they do the right thing. And that was a
36:13
Speaker 7: really great visit when he came, and when we had
36:16
Speaker 7: a chance to talk, he said, what I want to
36:19
Speaker 7: do with my life is serve the poor and those
36:23
Speaker 7: single parent households. That's what my life is going to be.
36:27
Speaker 7: And when he was out, he had worked in a
36:29
Speaker 7: pantry helping families, and that tells you all you need
36:33
Speaker 7: to know about him. And we had to say, could
36:36
Speaker 7: you not look for a job for six months and
36:38
Speaker 7: just help us be an advocate. So we hired Matthew
36:41
Speaker 7: to be a f fellow for the next six months.
36:43
Speaker 7: And we've already met with the Tennessee governor, the Florida governor.
36:46
Speaker 7: He's met with lawmakers, he's giving speeches, he was on
36:49
Speaker 7: panel yesterday. He's in high demand, and it's just I
36:54
Speaker 7: lustive of who he is. Even aside from those who
36:57
Speaker 7: want to give back on criminal justice reform, he just
37:00
Speaker 7: wants to be a positive.
37:01
Speaker 3: Member of his community.
37:02
Speaker 7: And we're grateful that he is using his voice to
37:05
Speaker 7: help us on this cause for now and then he's
37:09
Speaker 7: going to be the pride of Nashville when he finishes up.
37:11
Speaker 7: I've worked with a lot of people in this area,
37:14
Speaker 7: a lot of people who do good things and have
37:16
Speaker 7: been rehabilitated. But what has struck me about Matthew's story
37:20
Speaker 7: is that he has stayed grounded. He's not looking to
37:22
Speaker 7: be a celebrity. He is just looking to use his
37:25
Speaker 7: voice and experience in the best possible way, and we're
37:28
Speaker 7: incredibly grateful for it.
37:30
Speaker 5: Thank you, I thank you Jason for having me today.
37:34
Speaker 6: I like to say I became known by default due
37:37
Speaker 6: to the fact that my circumstances caught media attention and
37:40
Speaker 6: therefore people able to hear my story. You hear the situation,
37:44
Speaker 6: you say, Okay, this can't be possibly true. Then you
37:47
Speaker 6: find out that it is true. A man was released
37:50
Speaker 6: at serving twenty one and a half years on a
37:51
Speaker 6: non violent drug offense, an offense which actually cares now
37:56
Speaker 6: less than twenty years. I was given a thirty five
37:58
Speaker 6: year centers for it, not being for Judge Kevin Sharp
38:02
Speaker 6: allowing me to go friend twenty sixteen, nobody would even heard.
38:06
Speaker 5: Of me or my story or that I had changed.
38:08
Speaker 6: So I'm grateful that all of those spokes in that
38:11
Speaker 6: realm were working at the time. But my situation is
38:14
Speaker 6: not isolated from other people situations that are still incarcerated,
38:18
Speaker 6: that don't have anybody speaking on their behalf. That's actually
38:21
Speaker 6: asking how can I get some relief from a system
38:24
Speaker 6: that has caused me to feel better or pressed only
38:28
Speaker 6: because of the sinners, not the crime I committed, but
38:30
Speaker 6: the sentence that I was imposed. I've seen them, I've
38:33
Speaker 6: listened to their stories. I worked in a law library
38:36
Speaker 6: where they would come up to me and ask me
38:37
Speaker 6: to read letters from home, whether read from their kids,
38:40
Speaker 6: or their wives or their siblings, because they didn't have
38:42
Speaker 6: that educational level. So because I worked as an educational
38:46
Speaker 6: tutor before I worked in the law library, I was
38:48
Speaker 6: able to make friends with some people and help them
38:50
Speaker 6: to write letters back home to their families, to their children,
38:54
Speaker 6: as well as read their letters to them and what
38:56
Speaker 6: they was receiving from their attorneys. And some of them
38:59
Speaker 6: was like, I took this plea because had I not
39:01
Speaker 6: took this plea, I would have been sentenced to this
39:03
Speaker 6: or that, And all of those stories sounded synonymous to
39:06
Speaker 6: the point that it became it was the same. This
39:09
Speaker 6: person pleaded out to what they thought was less so
39:11
Speaker 6: that they wouldn't get a larger sentence, but yet they
39:14
Speaker 6: weren't even deserving of the senates that they were given.
39:17
Speaker 5: It's just that it was a trap system.
39:19
Speaker 6: Whether trap doors are closed and there's no way out
39:21
Speaker 6: if that happened to you, or that happened to your child.
39:24
Speaker 6: You'll want somebody to speak out on their behalf, or
39:26
Speaker 6: you will want some system to change.
39:28
Speaker 5: Well, that's all we want as well.
39:30
Speaker 6: They want to be able to get out and get
39:32
Speaker 6: back into society and regain their dignity. And so I'm
39:35
Speaker 6: thankful that I was able to be out for those
39:37
Speaker 6: two years. I'm thankful not that I went back those
39:39
Speaker 6: seven months, but during those seven months that it took
39:42
Speaker 6: on a whole new realm of people looking at my
39:45
Speaker 6: situation to where they were also able to present it
39:47
Speaker 6: to the senators and representatives saying, hey, a person can change,
39:53
Speaker 6: and we have an example of.
39:54
Speaker 5: Someone who has changed.
39:55
Speaker 6: They would have been able to say, oh, he certainly
39:57
Speaker 6: don't need to be there anymore. You got people with
39:59
Speaker 6: flights sentences, You've got people with sixty years all throughout
40:02
Speaker 6: the federal system, all throughout the state system. That's just
40:05
Speaker 6: begging and praying and hoping, full of second chance. Everyone
40:09
Speaker 6: is deserving of a second chance if they've changed.
40:12
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's great that you're here being the
40:15
Speaker 2: spokesperson that you are. And I was closed by just
40:18
Speaker 2: quoting the great Brian Stevenson said, I believe everyone's better
40:21
Speaker 2: than the worst thing they've ever done. Once again, this
40:24
Speaker 2: has been a unique and special episode of Wrongful Conviction.
40:28
Speaker 2: And thank you Kevin Ring Family Against Mandatory Minimums and
40:32
Speaker 2: Matthew Charles for joining us.
40:33
Speaker 5: All right, thank you for having me.
40:45
Speaker 2: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
40:48
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.
40:49
Speaker 3: It really helps.
40:50
Speaker 2: And I'm a proud donor to the NSIS project and
40:53
Speaker 2: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
40:56
Speaker 2: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
41:00
Speaker 2: to innisonsproject dot org to learn how to donate and
41:03
Speaker 2: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
41:06
Speaker 2: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
41:09
Speaker 2: by three time OSCAR nominated.
41:10
Speaker 3: Composer Jay Ralph.
41:12
Speaker 2: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
41:15
Speaker 2: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
41:19
Speaker 2: Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
41:22
Speaker 2: in association with Signal Company Number one