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Kim Kardashian West’s commitment to criminal justice and prison reform is apparently still going strong.
In an episode released Wednesday, the reality star appeared on the podcast “Wrongful Conviction” where she shared that she is working on the case of Chris Young, a man who she said received life in prison on drug charges after receiving three strikes.
“Yesterday, I had a call with a gentleman that’s in prison for a drug case — got life,” she said. “It’s so unfair. He’s 30 years old; he’s been in for almost 10 years.”
In June, the beauty mogul made headlines after she was able to get President Trump to
commute the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a first-time nonviolent drug offender who served 21 years in prison. Johnson, now 63 and a grandmother, was convicted in 1996 of conspiracy to possess cocaine and attempted possession of cocaine and spent a third of her life in prison.
In her newest case, Kardashian West said Young had prior convictions for marijuana possession and marijuana with less than half a gram of cocaine possession, and these minor infractions are what resulted in three strikes and a life sentence.
“I was on the phone with the judge that sentenced him to life, who resigned because he had never been on the side of having to do something so unfair and now he is fighting with us to get (Young) out,” she said. “It gave me such hope. It was a mandatory sentence that he had to deliver and (the judge) knew it was so wrong.”
To her point, in an April 2017, former US District Judge Kevin H. Sharp explained during an
interview with The Tennessean, explained his opposition to mandatory minimum sentences and said he would work to get the sentence in this particular case commuted.
Young who suffers from sickle cell anemia and has been in a medical facility receiving treatment, but will be returned to a maximum security facility after her gets better.
“It’s scary when you have a minor drug charge, but then you get life and you’re stuck in this crazy maximum security prison with murderers and people (like that),” she said. “It’s a completely different environment than the environment that he’s so used to.”
While she admits she can’t help everyone, Kardashian West speaks to the White House, especially with Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, to work on reform.
“He is really passionate about changing some of these laws and getting a lot of bills passed,” she shared. “Hopefully some things will get passed. I’m hopeful.”
