Kim Kardashian has gone from celebrity to activist, mobilized by the story of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for a non-violent crime.
The celebrity who achieved clemency for a woman in life imprisonment
Kim Kardashian has gone from celebrity to activist for prisoners in the United States, mobilized by the story of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for a non-violent crime of conspiracy for illicit drugs.
“Don't you know, you're already free. Today you can get out of prison”, Alice Marie Johnson found out, in the voice of whom she had called her “guardian angel” for months, who would no longer have to be in jail for life, as indicated his sentence handed down by the American justice.
That guardian angel turns out to be Kim Kardashian, the reality TV celebrity, who became interested in Alice's case last October, based on a video from the MIC media outlet that was circulating on social networks. There, Alice herself, a 63-year-old woman, in her prison attire, told her story behind a glass on a telephone: how she had made a bad decision at a bad time, how her crime was a non-violent drug trafficking conspiracy. , for the first time, and how the sentence had been life imprisonment without the benefit of parole. But also, how she had come to her senses, she was recognized for her exemplary behavior and her leadership in activities in the prison in favor of the community and the other inmates. Her only path to her freedom was to get a presidential pardon.
With the support of her personal lawyer, Kardashian West became involved in the case and spent seven months looking for possibilities to obtain this woman's freedom. She contacted Ivanka Trump, she made a bridge with her husband Jared Kushner, an adviser to the White House and who has been working to advance a reform of the United States federal criminal justice system. This, in turn, by studying the case, got a celebrity meeting with President Donald Trump.
The news of Johnson's release came a week after this meeting, in which, according to Kim Kardashian West, "the president really took the time to listen to us, to study the case and to understand what we were doing for Alice. . He really understood." The celebrity has been one of the many who have spoken out against Trump's policies, but, he says, this did not make him afraid to present the case, because, as he said before his meeting with him, "I will explain to him that, as Anyone else, we can make choices in our lives that we're not proud of and don't fully think about."
Alice and Kim met in person a week after they were released and gave interviews to various media outlets, including MIC, which had made it possible for this story to reach four million people, including Kardashian. In the emotional meeting, the women promised to stay in touch and continue working for the more than 3,000 people in prison who, for the first time for non-violent crimes, suffer excessive sentences like the one Alice Marie experienced. “I am a voice, and I am going to use it,” said Kim Kardashian, expressing to the media her intention to continue as an activist in the future.
