Kim Kardashian West confirmed to Mic that she has been working for months to get Alice Johnson released from prison. Johnson is a 62-year-old great-grandmother serving a life sentence without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense. Kardashian West said that she has spoken to Jared Kushner and the Trump administration about a potential presidential pardon for Johnson.
“I’ve been in communication with the White House and trying to bring her case to the president’s desk and figure out how we can get her out,” Kardashian West said to Mic. “That’s such a huge step from where we started with that not even being on their radar.”
Johnson has served more than 21 years of her life sentence. She was imprisoned for her involvement in a drug conspiracy and would need to be granted clemency from the president in order to be released.
Kardashian West saw a video, produced by Mic, in which Johnson talked about her case from inside a federal prison in Aliceville, Alabama. After seeing the video, Kardashian West enlisted her personal attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, to help with the case. Many consider Johnson’s case to be the hallmark example of why America needs criminal justice and sentencing reform. According to a 2016 report from the Brennan Center for Justice, about 25 percent of the country’s incarcerated population—364,000 people—are in prison for lower-level, nonviolent offenses.
“If you think about a decision that you’ve made in your life and you get life without the possibility of parole for your first-time nonviolent offense, there’s just something so wrong with that,” Kardashian West said to Mic.
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