Born at College Mound near Terrell, Texas, Swindall attended the public schools and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.

Charles Swindall was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Woodward, Oklahoma.

Following his unsuccessful bid for renomination to the Sixty-seventh Congress, he returned to his practice in Woodward, Oklahoma.

Swindall holds the title of the first Oklahoma judge to give a death sentence for committing a robbery with firearms.

Swindall refused to be partisan in his nominees, preferring to judge candidates on their qualifications, not their loyalty to a particular party.