"K.I.N.G. Quent"

Peace and blessings to all those reading this and thank you for visiting the site. My name is Quentin Morgan. In 2008, I was arrested for second degree murder and robbery, to which I confessed, plead guilty and was sentenced to 48 years in prison; despite these being my first felonies. I was 20 years old at the time, recently married, going to college and I had a child on the way. Nevertheless, the judge decided to sentence me to over two and a half (2.5) times what the Sentencing Commission recommended (10-18 years) without giving any reason for doing so.

According to Lutrell v. Commonwealth, “In any felony case... in which the court imposes a sentence which is greater or less than that indicated by the discretionary sentencing guidelines, the court shall file with the record of the case a written explanation of such departure.” The failure to do this constitutes a procedural violation which, in the federal prison system, would be grounds for a new sentencing hearing but, unfortunately for me and many others, the Commonwealth of Virginia has no remedy for this situation. According to the same case, “The failure to follow any or all of the provisions of this section or the failure to follow any or all of the provisions of the section the prescribed manner shall not be reviewable on appeal or the basis of any other post-conviction relief.”

This means that in the state of Virginia a judge can violate procedure when sending some people to prison and yet, the sentence can never be challenged. This situation allows all sorts of personal biases and prejudices to potentially affect the length of time a person may spend behind bars. This is the situation that myself and many others currently find ourselves in. I have been incarcerated for over a decade now, with 30 years left to serve, and have never been given a reasonable explanation for what the judge felt that I was so irredeemable that I needed to spend almost a half century behind bars.

I was young and immature man when I committed my crimes. No reasonably thinking person would expect someone to be the same person at 38 years old that they were at 20 years old. I had no felony record, was married, in college and had a child on the way. There was no justifiable reason for sentencing me so harshly. To give a 20 year old man 48 years in prison is to take away all of his hope for the future. And on top of that, parole has been abolished in Virginia. So what stimulus does the system give for self development? Yet, prisons are said to be institutions of rehabilitation. There is just no logic to this.

If you would ask me why I did what I did, I would say that I committed my crimes out of a sense of desperation. As a young immature man, I fell on hard times and I panicked. I never intended to kill a man that night and I still regret my actions to this day. Being forced to sit still and think has allowed me to deal with the reality of my life in a way I never had before. I remember reading, Battlefield of the Mind, by Joyce Meyers, and the truth of it is instantly resonated with me. I began to understand that my incarceration was the product of my thoughts and if a jail cell was what my thoughts had brought me, then I had to question everything that I had learned up until that point. I had lost my freedom, my child, and my youth; whatever thoughts and ideas had brought me to this place we're not the ones that I wanted to continue to follow.

In my search for answers, I began writing and reading more than I ever had. Reading introduced my mind to a much wider world than the one I'd experienced and writing gave me a way to express all of the new ideas floating around in my head. These two things — reading  and writing –have been very instrumental in me become a the man that I am today.

I hate to admit that I was so hard-headed, lost, and blind to the realities of life that it took for me to kill someone and to be sentenced to 48 years in prison before I could even begin to really see myself for who I was and who I could become, but it's the truth. There are times when I think about all of the ways that my actions affected people and in those moments, feelings of guilt and regret begin to creep in. But what I have discovered is that, rather than sending around everyday crying over events that I cannot change or trying to escape these feelings by getting drunk or high, the best way that I can atone for my actions is to use all of these feelings as a catalyst for self growth and humanitarian work. With this in mind, I encourage myself and others to elevate and to use whatever time we have left to do good and to atone for the things that we have done wrong in our lives.

Yet and still, it is not always easy for me to keep the faith. Being optimistic while doing time is a constant struggle and I still fight wars on the battlefield of the mind. But in those hard times, I remind myself that I am a king, a ruler of myself and my kingdom, and that my thoughts and actions are under my control. I also remind myself that the God within me is the true king and that my life is Its kingdom, so everything that I go through is in reality for my benefit in some way. You see, for me, K.I.N.G. is an acronym I designed to remind me to Keep Inspired and Never Give... up, in or away my power. This is the mindset that has driven me to accomplish the things that I have and it is the mindset that I know will bring me home to my family. 

I hope that you have been able to find something in my story that resonates with you and inspires you to be your best self. I hope that you see in my story a testimony to the strength of the human spirit and evidence that you can overcome any obstacles placed before you. Despite your current situation, it does not have to define you unless you allow it to. The things that I have accomplished, I have accomplished through hard work, faith, and focus. I pray that through it all you Keep Inspired and Never Give... up, in or away your power.

Thank you for your support.

Peace.