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The Case of Matthew Charles

📻 Episode #90
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Mar 11, 2019

About This Episode

At age 30, Matthew was arrested for selling 216 grams of crack cocaine to an informant and illegally possessing a firearm. He was given a 35-year sentence. In prison, Matthew could easily have crawled deeper into his shell of anger, but he didn’t. His prison life was directed at exemplary rehabilitation. He took college courses…

The Case

At age 30, Matthew was arrested for selling 216 grams of crack cocaine to an informant and illegally possessing a firearm. He was given a 35-year sentence. In prison, Matthew could easily have crawled deeper into his shell of anger, but he didn’t. His prison life was directed at exemplary rehabilitation. He took college courses and became a law clerk. And most importantly, Matthew became “genuinely repentant of his life before encountering the Grace of Christ, not offering empty excuses about his past, but taking ownership,” as a pastor would later describe him. In 2013, Matthew applied for a sentence modification because the Sentencing Commission had lowered guideline ranges for drug offenses. At his re-sentencing hearing, Judge Kevin Sharp commended his rehabilitation and reduced Matthew’s sentence. After spending 21 years in prison on a 35-year sentence, Matthew Charles was released in 2016. However, after a year and half of freedom, the court reversed the reduction in sentence, citing an error in his release. Remarkably, Matthew was sent back to prison in May of 2018 to serve out the rest of his sentence with more than a decade left to go. Then, the First Step Act, signed into law by President Trump on December 21, 2018, included a provision to apply the Fair Sentencing Act retroactively, which the government agreed would allow for Matthew’s immediate release. On January 3, 2019, Matthew Charles finally left prison for good.

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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts

Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.

00:05:39

“Speaker 6: twenty nineteen. Speaker 2: How does you know, people I tell people about Matthew's Speaker 2: case and they say, well, isn't that double jeopardy? He Speaker 2: was in, he was out, and he was put back Speaker 2: in for the same crime. Speaker 7: Matthew was sent back because the federal judge in his”

00:20:04

“Speaker 7: punish them. And that's I'd love to point to somebody Speaker 7: say it's their fault. But we countenance this unless we Speaker 7: go to say to the politicians, we don't want these Speaker 7: policies anymore. Speaker 2: No, that's absolutely right, And you know it's nuts, because”

00:33:50

“Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't forty years ago that we had Speaker 2: three hundred thousand people in prison in America. Now we Speaker 2: have two point two million and women in prison. I mean, Speaker 2: we don't have time to go into that, but the Speaker 2: fact is we have four point four percent of the”

Listen to the Episode

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Resources & links from the episode:

• lavaforgood.com
• omnystudio.com

← #89 Darnell Phillips #91 Harold "House" Moore →

Also on the podcast: #276 Charles McCrory · #335 Charles Jackson · #512 Charles "Brandon" Martin