I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean. I was brought up with cops are the good guys.
I didn't know what was going to happen, but I do know that everything was stacked against me.
Everything like everything.
This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do with this. How is this possible?
I grew up trusting systems. I grew up believing that every human being should do the right thing. And that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with corerough people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.
I'm not innocent, too proven guilty.
I'm guilty until I prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.
Our system. Since I've been out ten years, it's come a little ways, but it's still broken.
I totally lost trusting humanity after what happened to me.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. With Jason Flam Today, I have a very special guest, someone who is a change maker in the criminal justice reform movement who I'm absolutely delighted to have in the studio. So Kim Kardashian. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
Thank you for having me.
So Kim. I'm really amazed at what you've been able to accomplish in a short time, and I'm thrilled to have you as a public such a public voice and face for the criminal justice reform movement. And I'm really interested to find out how you got started on this mission and what you plan to do going forward, because I think the you know, the possibilities are limitless. So what got your intention? I know there was an article or a video you saw on Twitter, like sort of serendipity, right, Yeah.
That's how I think. Just because I'm not on my phone all the time, I'm not on Twitter all the time. It happened to be that exact moment that I saw a video of Alice Johnson pop up on my feed that someone that I followed retweeted, and I just my heart broke for her and her story just I connected with it. For whatever reason, I just felt like it was so wrong and that if I could do anything, then I wanted to try. I truthfully didn't know I was going to get that far.
I was about to ask you that, like, what did I mean, because it's such a crazy thing, like the idea that you like, getting someone out of prison is you know, I mean, like it's like trying to catch lightning in a bowl. Right, Yeah, you were like, I got you just had to do it, and I had that feel to do it.
Yeah, I mean, it was just a feeling that I was like, I have to do it. And so you know, she's she's a woman. I figured Evanka would totally understand and feel the same thing that I felt. So my first call was to Evanka, Well.
Wait a minut. Let's go back a second, Kim, because can you explain the circumstances of this case, because it is maddening when you know what happened to Alice, But at the same time, it's really scarily typical. I mean, she is not a unique case, but you know.
She wasly about three thousand alices.
Oh yeah, there's so many people that are in her situation.
It's just in her situation. So yeah, so she was a part of a drug conspiracy. She had a great job, worked at FedEx for ten years, lost her job, had five kids, her youngest son died, had to make money, had to feed her kids. Somebody told her, Hey, if you're the phone mule, and if you answer the phone and be that you know connection, you can make one thousand dollars every time you answered the phone. So she
didn't do it often, but did it enough. She didn't know who the people were, she didn't know the quantities, she wasn't never touched the drugs.
What the state was this Tennessee, right, So, and there's a I have a lot of experience in Tennessee. But so let's just think about this because there's almost an element of My favorite book I've ever read was Lem As a Rob and it's sort of informed and I think influenced me to get started on this life, this mission of criminal justice reform, because there's an element of that.
Right here. You have a mom who had a choice, like she was having trouble feeding her family, and that's so powerful, right, I mean, there's probably nothing more powerful than a mother's love. And I'm not excusing her behavior because it was technically illegal, but let's put ourselves in her shoes for a second. Right, there's an interesting choice. So you're faced with she wasn't a career criminal.
Never had any nothing in her history of anything criminal. Her whole family, no one had a criminal record, really good support system, really good team, made some bad choices everyone else. Because it was this big conspiracy. Everyone got caught, everyone got in trouble. Everyone I think pled guilty in and out of jail. She I don't know what their exact sentences were, but she pled not guilty, went to trial because she was like I just I was just
answering the phones. I didn't even touch the drugs, see the drugs, know the quantity. She knew it was drugs, but didn't ask any questions. And she got life in prison without the possibility of parole. And it was so crazy.
And that's an amazing thing too. And there's so many interesting parallels right in the way that you and I got started on this. And I want to go back for a second. We'll come back to Alice. But you wouldn't necessarily know this, but both of us have famous fathers who were lawyers. Both of us did some crazy stuff when we were kids that we know, and I've seen you talk about this, which is why I'm referencing it.
Both of us are aware that we could have gotten in real trouble for the things that we did when we were kids, but we weren't in that situation, right, and we were able to know we had good guardian angels or whatever it was, right, So there's, you know, there's a little bit of a there but for the grace of God go I right type of situation when you see somebody like Alice. And both of us got involved in this because of cases that we learned about
in the media. Because the first time I got involved in a case was a guy I read about in the newspaper. And this is where the media can play such an important role. Who was serving fifteen years to life for a non violent first offense cocaine possession charge.
And once again, that's fifteen years life for a nonviolent first offense cocaine possession charge, right, And so I ended up a long story short sitting in the courtroom holding his mother's hand when we got the judge to reverse the charges or to reduce the charges, I should say, And he was freed after nine years of amandatory fifteen but in her case, it's so important what you're saying and what you're doing with Alice, and it's so important
that she's such a wonderful spokesperson because of the fact that people need to understand that in these cases, the least culpable person, which in this case was her, ends up with the longest sentence. Why because a they don't have information to trade. They probably went to her and said, Alice, tell us who the kingpin is. She had no way of knowing, no idea. And they also went to her and said, plead guilty. Now then she's sitting there going, well,
wait a minute, I plead guilty. They probably offer her ten years or something, right, and who's wants to make that choice. You're sitting there going, but I just answered the phone and I have a family to take care of it whatever, and so you please, and then they throw the book at you. And that's exactly what happened.
So this is a case that I've looked at from like a case about Cinoya Brown, Like so many people that I have looked at that have gotten life, It's all been in Tennessee. Everything that I've gravitated towards has all.
Been in Tennessee and the story I was just telling you about Nora Jackson, my you know who's become family to me in a very real way. That was a Tennessee case. She was actually in the same prison with Cintoya for a period of time. Wow. So yeah, Tennessee is, but it's not the worst state, believe it or not. Really. Oklahoma recently passed Louisiana as the state that incarcerates the highest number of people per capita. And let's talk about
that for a second game. As we were talking in the studio earlier, right, America incarcerates five times as many people per capita as the rest of the Western world. So that means we have twenty five percent of the world's prison population, but we only have four point four percent of the world's population. So that can only mean
one of two things. Either Americans are the most evil people in the world or we're doing something really wrong because these other countries don't have problems with crime rates or anything else. It's it's just not a deterrent. It's it's just they have a more humane policy towards their own people, and we are the incarceration nation. And then the numbers get even worse when you get inside of them.
And now that you've had this experience, I know, we went to a woman's prison and spent and then you didn't go there and wave and leave. It wasn't a photo op, right, you were there.
I know it for a few hours.
I know I heard.
The story, so it was it was fascinating. Honestly, I after Alice, I thought to myself, well, if someone murdered someone, would I fight hard to get them out? Thinking that, you know, to myself and having those conversations with my family members and my husband and right violent versus non violentce Yeah, and I thought, you know what, probably not at first first thought. After going there and hearing these women's stories, I was like, you know what, I absolutely would.
And I know, you know to some people that might that might sound crazy, but hearing the circumstances that these women have been in that have led them to the journey of where they ended up or so many people just self defense and being getting life and it was so like heartbreaking. I never thought, you know, and I'm so glad I went in. I can't wait to go back.
Wow, what a thing that is to say. Let's just think about that for a second. Yeah, here's Kim Kardashian going, I can't wait, and you say I can't wait to go, And if most people feel that and then go to Mikonos to I guess the audience, let's guess the top ten guesses win whatever. Right, prison wouldn't be most people's guests of where you would want to go. You can go anywhere. Yeah, you can be anywhere. You're Kim Kardashian.
Yeah, but I thought, I mean, I text my whole family on my way saying, you know, hey, guys, I won't have my phone for a few hours, so you know, the kids, if anything, if anyone needs anything, you know, just whatever, I'll be back in a few hours. And they were like, well, where are you going? And I was like, oh, I'm going into prison. And they were like, what where are you going? And I was like, I'm so sorry. I forgot to tell you guys. You know,
I'm just going to check it out. I want to hear these women's stories and I just I'm just going, you know. And they were, you know, fascinated, and Chloe had said, well, I wish you told me. I would have gone with you. And my mom is traveling and she was like, you have to fill me in and tell me everything, And it was just it was a
moment when I walked in. I mean to see when I would walk down the halls and the women were banging on the windows and sticking their heads out of the windows, like the place was practically shaking, and everyone was screaming, Kim's here, Kim Kardashian's here, are you going to get us out? Get us out? You know, because after Alice and it was it was a crazy, crazy experience, but so it so normalized it for me just sitting and talking to these women that I totally understood.
Them, you know, Kim. Brian Stevenson, who's a hero, a great hero of mine, has a saying he says, and he said this so powerfully in his Ted talk, which I recommend everybody watch. He said, I believe everyone's better than the worst thing they've ever done. Now, I'm not somebody who believes we should just open the doors and everybody should go free. We're a nation of laws. I think we have to enforce laws, but we have to make the laws humane, we have to make them sensible,
and we have to reverse this mass incarceration. We had three hundred thousand people in prison thirty something years ago. Now we have two point two million, like we have. And inside the number right you have and you touched on this, right, there's so many women in prison. We have twenty five percent of the world's prison population. We have thirty three percent of the world's female prison population. And going back to Oklahoma, they have double that per capita.
Right have they over indexed the rest of the country by double in Oklahoma? And your head's gonna explode when I tell you this, right in Oklahoma, And we're working on this now, trying to make a big change. But in Oklahoma, if you're pregnant and the baby daddy beats you up, whether it's a boyfriend, husband, lover, whatever it is, you are guilty of endangering the welfare of a child and you can go to prison for life.
So it's crazy for being beat up.
And you don't have to have instigated it, you don't have to do it. You could be stuck in a room, it doesn't matter. Like that's how crazy the laws are. And then there's all these women who were in prison because they were like Alice Johnson, they were the low level person on the team in some sort of quote unquote conspiracy. Right. These are not big drug dealers or kingpins.
These are girlfriends who answered the phone like she did, or who were in the car when their boyfriend, their de other boyfriend got pulled over, like Kembus Smith, who I got President Clinton to grant clemency to all those years ago, who.
Just showed it was a woman that was not even in the same county when a murder happened and the boyfriend blamed it on her. And I don't know her exact story, but she got life because he probably rotted her out and it was you know, there was no physical connection to her being there, and she was pregnant and had the baby in prisons, never seen her baby was thirty years ago. She wasn't even there the same county, right, heard life.
I've heard those stories before too, and it's it's so strange to me why we treat our women this way. And there's there's I mean, we could talk about this literally for days. Yeah, there's there's shaken baby syndrome, right, which is there's hundreds and hundreds of people, maybe thousands, in prison for shaking. Maybe a lot of them are women takers they're even babysitters whatever. And these babies died of natural causes. It's crib death. There's no such thing
as shaking baby syndrome. It's a made up thing. You cannot shake a baby, and almost every top neurologist agrees on this. You can't shake a baby hard enough to kill it, to rattle its brain without breaking its neck. And now these babies have broken necks. Think about it. It's ridiculous. Your brain's not that soft. I mean, babies, you know they You ever thought about that? It's crazy, right. So there's a whole group of women who people say, well,
she's a murderer. No, actually, she's a woman who lost her child and now she's in prison for life because some overzealous prosecutor or some other thing went wrong in the system, and now they're stuck in there forever. And it's like, and Michelle Murphy, who's who I'm extremely connected to, I call her my knee. She calls me uncle. It's an Oklahoma case who was convicted of She's been on my podcast, on the same podcast that you are sitting
here like you are now. And we were on the Doctors together and Michelle was convicted of murdering her fifteen week old baby, and she was a gree shesly framed. So she served twenty years of a life sentence, and she before her conviction was overturned with prejudice, which is like the strongest that a court can say this was wrong. And the judge after she was exonerated said that in his four decades on the bench it was the worst
miscarriage of justice he'd ever seen. So, you know, there's a huge number of people, and then they're even the ones, like you said, who were self defense cases right.
Where most of what I said, like I understand, I obviously don't understand the act of you know, killing someone, but the act of if you are getting abused and you have children and you're protecting them and you fight back and the person dies and you have life because
you've been beaten for so many years. And I mean so many of these cases that of these women that were sharing their stories with me, just I felt them and that just you know, I feel like even just hearing about all the programs in prison and really how to get people back on their feet for when they get out, there's so many flaws. Like I was like overwhelmed, leaving thinking like, well, I don't even know where to start, Like there's so much wrong with the system. I don't even know where to start.
But you did start, and you are starting, and you're here now, and that is making a huge difference, just the fact that you're here and that you're able to use your voice.
I'm learning. That's why I wanted to go, because I was like, I don't have any connection to prison. I've never been to prison. I don't. I want to go, and I want to see what it's like, and I want to hear from people that are living it, what their experience is like and what could change what you know, just I'm learning. I'm learning as I go.
I think it's so important, you know, to highlight the idea that you know, both of us got involved in this stuff because of stories you heard about it on social media. I heard about it in old media. Right, it was just a newspaper article. Right, I was holding into my hands. Right. Some people are like, wait, what's that? But you know, it's so important. If you know someone who was wrongfully convicted or who is serving an unjust sentence,
you must talk about it. You must call reporters you must reach out to whoever you can think of, because you never know. Talk about it to your friends and a diner, there might be someone at the next table who knows someone who knows someone. The world is actually small that way, and everybody has the ability to make a difference, and you know, and it needs to be done. I mean, it's so easy for me to empathize with the people who are serving these sentences and to just
sit there and go I can't. I literally can't think of anything worse.
Than to So it's the worst when I mean, yesterday I had a call with a gentleman that's in prison for a drug case. Got life. It's so unfair. He's thirty years old, he's been in for almost ten years. It was a marijuana case, right, yeah, yeah, he had his prior conviction to get him to his three strikes was marijuana and then marijuana with less than half a gram of cocaine possession.
Half a gram. That's like a sweetened low package for people who aren't familiar. That's like, that's literally like how much is in a Sweden love like less maybe a little less than that?
Got life. And 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 him out. And it's just, I mean, when you see it, at least it gave me like such hope that the jet like you think, it was a mandatory sentence that he had to deliver, and he knew it was so wrong, and he was like, I'm going
to make this right. I'm going to step down and I'm going to help to fight to get him out. And I spoke to him on the phone from prison and it was, you know, just a really crazy. It's just there's so many people like.
Him, and it's so important what you're saying, and because of the fact that these mandatory sentencing laws and I got involved. The first organization I ever got involved was Families Against Mandatory Minimums. After I got that first guy, Stephen Lennon out, I was hooked, like you're hooked now, and I love seeing it in you because you're young enough to be my own daughter, and so it's so
exciting to see another generation. And it's this movement is growing so fast and we're going to turn it upside down. We're going to there's no stopping. And so the first thing I did, after having that cathartic experience of sitting there holding missus Lennon's hand as her son was as a judge, you know, slammed the gavel down and ruled that she was going to be free, he was to
be freed. I did some research and I found out about this organization called Families Against Mandatory Minimums, and they are a wonderful organization that has done fantastic things. I've been on their board now for twenty five years, so I'm like a true believer. But they've been we've been reversing these mandatory sentencing laws state by state, federally as you know, as much as we can, as many as we can, and we're never going to stop until there's fairness.
And it's interesting because, you know, it really struck home to me what you said about this judge saying I couldn't believe I had to send like that doesn't make any you and judge, And so, you know, it's interesting because the history of mandatory sensing laws is that originally they were minor saying as they were passed because Congress thought, well, it's not right that in some cases a different judge for the same crime might send somebody more harshly or
or leniently. And so they were trying to make it, you know, more of an even playing field. But then they just started going, well, the tough on crime hera, let's just make tougher and tougher senses, show how tough we are on crime. They started passing mandatory sentences for everything, and they made them tougher and tough for without any regard for what they were doing to society. And so you end up with a situation where in two thousand I went to the Senate and I did a presentation
for the Democratic Policy Committee in the Senate. Twenty four senators there, and I went. One of the people I went with was I went with Amy Fofolo, was a woman who I convinced President Clinton to Grand cromeincy too. And Julie Stewart, who runs Families Against Mandatory Men, was a founder of Family Against Panetry. Minis and federal Judge Castillo came with us and he was the vice chair of the US Sentencing Commission. Big powerful guy, a guy you really think like, looks an act like you'd cast
him as a judge. And he said, you guys confirmed me unanimously to do the most difficult job that anyone can have, which is to sentence another human being to prison, and then you took away my ability to do it. He goes, I just sit there and look at a chart, and then I just have to send people to these crazy sentences, regardless of I think it exists.
Guess what it is. You see, if I got a list of some people that I was going to meet with and I just read their sentences and would have thought that there's not a chance, I, you know, would ever think that this in like, not even knowing their circumstances. Then you come and you meet these people. What's on paper and what's in person is so different, and that is the hard part is just I mean, you obviously can't get to know everyone and go around to every
prison and meet people and help everyone. I mean, but like, the laws really just have to change. And I do know that. I do talk to the White House often on this subject with Jared Kushner, and he is really passionate about changing some of these laws and getting a lot of bills passed and hopefully some things will get past. I'm just I'm hopeful.
Well, I think there's a lot of movement in the States, and I was going to say, I think that if we could get you involved in isolated cases with state laws, no. Ninety percent of people in prison in America and state prisons. Yeah, right, So the you know, the federal it's going to move much slower in the federal level for the time being. And it's very important to work on the micro and
the macro. Right the micro is is the Alice Johnsons of the world, the Stephen Lennon's of the world, the Lenny Singleton who I was had the thrilling experience of walking out of prison in Virginia a few weeks ago. But the macro is changing these laws so it doesn't happen to other people. Because if you're listening out there and you don't think it can happen to you, it
can happen to you. And by the way, be aware, like if you're riding in a car and someone else has drugs and you get pulled over and nobody takes responsibility for it, it belongs to everybody. If it's in the glove compartment or the trunk or under the seat. Absolutely you can be just so you can get caught up. If you think this can't happen to you, it can happen.
I was when I was talking to Chris Young, who's who's in prison. He has sickle selenemia, so he's had to have a few surgeries, so he's been in a medical facility for a few years and he goes back into the maximum security prison where lifers have to go, and he's so like he's had a perfect record, and he was saying, like, I can stay out of trouble in here, but going in there, I'm you know, there's stabbings, there's this, and if you're near that, you can get
in trouble so easily. And I you know, he was just didn't want to get caught up in a situation that had nothing to do with him, but could very much have by you know, the close proximity have so
much to do with him. And it's just, you know, it's scary when you, you know, have a minor drug charge, but then you get life and you're stuck in this crazy maximum security prison with murderers and people that you know, just it's a completely different environment than the environment that he's so used to.
Life in prison for a non violent offense. There's no other country that does that. I mean, it's so nuts the way we treat our own people, you know. And I talked to politicians and I'll be like, well, you know, if another country treated our people the way we do, we'd invade. We'd be like, you're not getting away with that. You can't do that to our citizens, are you nuts?
Put him in these gulags, these violent places where they that breed disease, and you know, abuse, all kinds of abuse, physical, sexual, where there's stabbings and you you're to basically just try to stay alive. And some of them are privatized. Only even get me started on that. No other country would do this, but we do it to our own citizens, who are just regular people until one day they're caught up and the next thing you know, there they are, and it's like, uh, you know, people just sort of
forget about them. We can't forget about them. Kim Let me ask you something, So, can you describe that feeling like when you found out that Alice was going to go home and you knew that you had a lot to do with it, right that you were really the driving force behind giving this woman, this lovely woman by all accounts of everything I've heard about her her life back, Like, I mean, that's not exaggeration. She was going to die in prison? What was that? How'd you find out about it?
At number one? Where were you? What were you doing? Was it hot? Was it cold? What were you sitting down? Did you scream? And how did it feel? Can you explain that?
Yeah? I was on a photo shoot with Stephen Klein and it was a very racy photo shoot.
This perfect.
I'm like practically naked and my phone rings, and I knew that I should be. I mean, it would been this really long roller coaster of is this going to happen? Is it not going to happen? You know, after I'd gone to the White House, White House.
So you let's just say that.
Yes, and then get a phone. My phone rings and it says unknown, and so I'm like, give me a you know, get me a robe hold on, stop, you know, And I run over and I answer the phone and it is the President and he let me know himself that he was going to release Alice, and he was signing the paper right then and there, and I just was like in shock. I was just so happy cry. I didn't cry until I called Alice to tell her myself.
And so you got the news to her.
Yes, I got to break the news to her, and it was just it was crazy because so I spoke, you know to the president. He let me know that that was what was going to happen, and he was going to sign the papers right then and there and she could be released that day. And you know, I didn't know, does it happen right away? Is there a process?
Is it?
You know, what is it? So he was going to let her go, you know, he told me she can leave today. So I called the attorneys. A woman named Brittany was really heading it from Buried Alive the organization Buried Alive. So her and I have been in contact of how you know, with Chris Young, who I'm you know, working with now and all these other people. She really brings me people that you know, she really was backing Alice for you know, years and helping Alice. So Brittany, Brittany Barnett.
And what's the organization as I want.
To be Buried Alive? Yeah, Buried Alive. So she's been amazing and so so great and has brought me people that she thinks that I would really connect with, like Chris, and she's been great to work with. So she I call my attorney, Sean, who connects me with Brittany, and they call Alice, and so Alice says that she got, you know, on the loud speaker, like Alice, come to hear you know, phone call. So she gets on the phone and she assumes that it's a regular attorney's call.
I mean, she obviously knows that I went to the White House and we're just waiting, and I filled her in right after I was done with a White House on how the conversation went. And I said to her, you know, it couldn't have gone any better. I know, I gave it my all. I feel like we gave an amazing pitch and I feel like the President heard us and did feel like she had spent her time and I felt that, and so I felt really confident. And I'm the type of person where like I don't
like to get excited. I don't overspeak until something is done and ready and you know, finished, So I didn't want to get her too excited, but I knew it went well. So then I didn't know what happened this quick, and because it had been about six months of me talking to Jared Kushner and getting this all happening. It wasn't a quick overnight thing. It wasn't like Kim called, she got a meeting, this happened.
It did not happen like that.
It was a long time getting her file together and a lot of fighting for her. So Alice gets on the phone and I thought that the attorneys had told her already because I was just jumping in the call and I thought we were just going to have the celebrate, celebratory call. I had no idea. She didn't know. So she wasn't like screaming. She wasn't and I know her, I feel like she'd cry and be screaming and thanking me. And she just was kind of like, Hey, what's going on?
What's up? And I was like, oh, it's Kim. I'm on the phone. And she was like, hey, how are you? And then I said, oh, wait, you don't know, because I was so shocked that she was so calm, and she said no, no, what And I said, Alice, You're going home. And the screams and the cries and that's when I cried. It was like three minutes on the phone of like tears, no one can speak. And then finally she was like, Okay, well what do I do?
Where do I go?
Like, and I was like the attorneys jumped in to tell her the protocol. But yeah, it was just it was such a cool thing, such a cool moment. I was like, Okay, this feeling. If I used my resources to make this happen for her, what else can we do?
Was that one of the happiest moments of your life?
It really was, It really really was. Meeting her was another one. Just seeing her family, seeing because you can hear about it, and like I was talking about on paper and in person. When I saw the video of Alice, that's what changed me. If I were to just hear
the story, I would definitely feel something. But when I heard her talk, saw her eyes, felt her soul and what her family was missing out on, and her missing out on her grandbabies and her parents dying and all this stuff, yeah, her great grandchildren, I felt like a connection, Like, well, I have all you know, I have a big family, and I would be devastated if something like that happened
in my family. So meeting her family and seeing that all come to life, and like what you were saying in the studio earlier, she didn't even know how have a cell phone before seeing her figure out an iPhone and how to you know what an emoji was, and like the simple things that was really crazy to just she just wanted to do the simplest things.
So you know, it's interesting too. It's another parallel because many years ago, in two thousand, I was fortunate to get to have dinner with President Clinton in a group, but I was at his table and I got him to talk to me about the drug laws, and you know, he admitted they were wrong, and he said, you know, I think if someone breaks the law, they should they should go to jail, but they shouldn't spend the best years of their life there for a non violent fence.
And I was like, okay, so we agree on that. And I gave him a letter from a woman who he had He had granted a few clemencies up to that point, and I gave him a letter from one of the women he had granted clemency too, who was one of those ones, like a girlfriend of a drug dealer and was an Arkansas case and he read it and I said to him, mister President, what you did for these five people was heroic, wonderful, but I know of hundreds of other cases just as bad as those.
And he said, in front of the whole table, he said, you get them to me and I'll sign them. And I was like, and well then I was like, wait what hold on? Okay, I said, okay, let me just get my wits about me. Right. The whole table was like, look like, what did you just say? And so I said, well, mister President, when you leave here tonight, you're I never met him before. I was like, you're not going to be the easiest guy for me to get on the phone,
like how do you reckon? And I do that? And he told me the whole proper channels to go through the Chief Council, the justice part of the whole thing, right, And so then I worked with families against mandatory minimums and we found cases that fit the criteria that he wanted to see nonviolent first defenders serving these crazy sentences. And you just brought this memory back from me. So thank you for that, because and it took I had to push a lot even from that point, like it wasn't.
It wasn't like the next day, Hey, everything's great, you know, but you know, perseverance is an important part of my story. And ultimately that was only if that was only I think that was September of his last year in office, only had till January. And I think that my dad helped me with that. Funny enough, because we ended up putting together seventeen cases. Ultimately more we found more. I think it was a total twenty three that we ended
up asking for. These were all families against manatory minimums cases, and he granted two. In December, and I was with my dad, the famous lawyer dad of mine, who really put this justice, this this sense of fairness and ethics and morality into me, and who you know, was my hero growing up and he's not around anymore. But I said, I happen to be having lunch with him on his birthday, which was December twentieth. I said, Dad, this is ridiculous. He told me he was going he only gave me two.
And my dad helped me at that point forward. He said, I'm going to I have an idea how to help, and he got involved and you know, connected me with someone else who you know, connected me with the one and you know it's just like you, like you, you just have to keep pushing. And ultimately President Clim granted clemency to seventeen of those people, and you know, many of them have gone on to achieve higher degrees of learning. Peter Ninmyer got a master's degree from like Kansas State.
Kenbus Smith is now an attorney in Atlanta. She's a public defender, I believe, got a degree from Loddigrief in University of Michigan. These are all people who just needed a second chance, you know, and my and I hope we can really shift the public consciousness on this together, Kim, because these people are not dangerous. These are people who just want a chance, and they'll work harder. And if you're an employer, you're somebody has a business out there.
Giving somebody like them a chance when they get out is the best decision you're going to make, because they will work harder and do better because they're so great now.
They do not want to go back.
They don't want to go back. They've learned. They didn't need these long sentences to learn. They want to have a life and have a chance. And I have not. I've been knock Wood. I've been very fortunate that of all the people, all the clemency cases I've worked on, state and federal, none of them have reoffended. Not all of them, and not all of them are doing fantastic, you know, I mean it doesn't. It's still very challenging
on the outside. It's what I call the second punishment, right, the stigma that's associated with you know, formerly incarcerated people, system affected people. But so many of them are doing wonderful things, raising families. You know. Stephen Lennon the first guy, you know, he ended up having a family call. Oh I think so Stephen Lennin six months after he got out,
I said this. I was doing a ted X talk from inside a maximum security prison in Uganda in March, and I told this story, So Stephen got out, And that one took about six months as well, from the time I first read the story in the newspaper, and five months later I got a letter in the mail from a woman whose name I didn't recognize in Cincinnati, Ohio. So I was like, I think her name is Joeyanne Paris. I don't know anyway, So I opened the letter and it started off, dear Jason, you don't know me, but
you got me pregnant. And that's what I said. I was like, oh, wait what, I'm starting to think my mind's racing. Did I go to Cincinnati? Oh my god, right, No, man, I don't wants to hear those words. I was like, wait, what And so I read on and it says, just so you know, my brother Stephen Lennon, and for the last five years, my husband and I've been trying to conceive, and the doctor told me that the stress of my brother's incarceration was preventing us from getting pregnant. And I'm
pregnant now, just all you want to know. And I was like, oh man, this is just the gift that just keeps on giving. So it is, you know, it's it's such a joy. I saw it in the videos and why I really wanted to have you on the show was because I saw, you know, I saw an interview did with Mike, and I read, you know, various stories about your involvement and your your you know, and
your joy just came through in all of it. And it is it's a it's a sense of pure joy and it is it is better than anything I know in terms of I mean, we both are are lucky to be, you know, to have a family and have the you know that that's a different category, right. I don't think you can compare. That's a you know, anyone out there who has kids, you know, can relate to that. But if you take that aside, it's hard to think
of a better feeling. I know for me that day when I got that phone call that President Clinton was had granted those clemencies, it.
Was the best feeling in the world because the best someone know that you're going to change someone's life forever.
And I just want to do more than life. I'm going to keep doing it until i am it's on my last breath. I mean, because it's it's a purpose. It's I call it selfish altruism. You know, it makes me feel good. Yeah, I love doing it. I love talking about it. I love seeing people like you get involved with it. I love the movement spreading. I love the laws that we're changing, and I'm going to you know, look,
it's amazing. Thirty years ago if someone said, hey, you know, marijuana is going to be legal in most of the America, I would have said no, it's not possible. But we fought, like so many of us fought for this, you know. And there's no reason anyone should go to jail for marijuana. And that's changing. There's still people like Chris who are in prison for life for marijuana, a plant that's legal. And how'd you like to be him or his family? Right?
Little cocaine, A little cocaine at half a gram? Oh my god, a half a gram. Let's think about that. A graham is such a small amount. It's like, think about that. It's I don't even know, it's like, but yeah, So look, we've got a ton of work to do.
You.
You know, we need more of you. I think we need to. Really. The last point I want to talk about is clemencies. You have shown in a very public way that this act of mercy, this act of uh, it's a responsibility, really, And the reason governors and presidents are given that power is because they're supposed to do things like this, right, it's there, it's part of their job. And over the years it's declined so much. In the post Willie Horton era, all of a sudden everyone was
scared to give clemencies. And that's not right, And I know that for me, whether it was working with Governor McAuliffe or other governors i've worked with or during the Obama administration, or with President Clinton, every single time I've had the experience of working with a political leader who in a position to give those clemencies. In the aftermath, they've come to me and said that it was a profound experience for them. In many cases they meet the
people who they've ranton clemency to. President Clinton told me subsequently he wished he would have done more, you know. And so for people who are out there listening, who may work in the offices of.
The halls of power, the White House will do more.
I think. I think with your support and other people like you advocating, they will, and I think we can. We can do so much better in the States as well.
Yeah, I'm hoping to meet Governor Brown and whoever will be the next governor.
Hopefully. I'm a Newsom fan, so I hope Cavin Nussin's the next governor. But the yes, Governor Brown has expressed a great deal of interest in this. He's worked, He's granted quite a few clemencies already, and I think he has his heart in the right place. He wants to. You know, he is someone who is on the same page as us in terms of life without parole being an insane sentence. It's an insane sentence. Yeah, life without parole. And you know, and I will I said that was
gonna be the last pint. But I make more point because for people out there listening, you're paying for this, right. I mean, you know who's making money the prison. This is the prison industrial contlects, the private prisons. There's a lot of people making money on these inmates, on these these incarcerated people. But you're paying for it. It doesn't come from the air, it doesn't come from you know,
it's not it's like it. And in some states we spend more money incarcerating Americans than we do educating them, and so and then of course the kids end up with no parent and then they're much more likely to get in trouble and so, you know, everything from bail reformed, there's just so many important things that have to be done, but we have to end mass incarcerat We can do it, and we will do it together. So for everybody listening out there, you know, get involved, go to families, against
mandatory minimums. FAMM dot org. Go to Buriedlive dot org. Go to Innocenceproject dot org. Get online learn about it. All these websites have pages where you can get involved, host an event, raise money, write letters to inmates. So important, I mean, give a little hope to That's my reading now.
I don't read books anymore. I read letters. I get stacks of letters daily that inmates write me. So I love to read them and go through them and hear their stories, and I hope it all you know changes.
Yeah, Well, it's those people are you know, those people are smart because they're reaching out. I mean, there's there's tragically, there's so many people inside who've given up hope. Yeah, and you know, and at the same time we've both had the experience of seeing what it's like when they get out. These people are so full of grace and so full of you know. The amazing thing is for everyone I've met whose system effected formally incarcerated, there's not
one of them who's bitter. They all have the same thing that I saw with Alice, you know, when she was speaking. They're just optimistic and there they have, like I said, this state of grace and that puts so much gratitude in my attitude when I see these people who are like they've just been through this ordeal that no one can even imagine that hasn't been through it. I can't, and I've been around it for twenty five years, and yet they come out like, hey man, let's go.
Like you know, I was actually talking to my friend, the artist I was talking to my friend, the artist Peter Tunney today about a guy named Keith Allen Harvard who's been on the same podcast, who was in prison for thirty four years for crime didn't commit, and he has nothing but just that'ctivity.
I don't know. There's so many cases that I've been reading about that lately, just completely innocent and just people that have been in for thirty plus years when just DNA testing is so different. Like Kevin Cooper.
Oh, Kevin Cooper, I know.
I tweeted for Governor Brown. I'm like, please just DNA test. Yeah, I mean, it's good, you got to do.
It's like the most let's just find out whether he's guilty or innocent. The DNA doesn't lie. Yeah, you know, that's what.
That there should just that is what literally kills me stories like his that it's so simple and.
He could have been executed too. I mean, there's so many innocent people on death row. We know that approximately the best estimates are the four percent of people on death row are innocent. So imagine that. When I talk to people who are in favor of the death penalty, I'm like, well, okay, how many innocent people is it okay to execute? Yeah? And people go no, no, no, But I mean you can't actually, but you know the system.
Is, how can you be on death row without DNA evidence, with nothing linking you, like to the It's so crazy to me, that's just crazy.
There was there have been executions where we've been fighting to get the DNA tested and they've refused right up until the day of the execution. And God had to execute somebody anyway. I mean, it's it's just it is. There was one in Kansas. It was Kansas last year that we were fighting like hell to get this the DNA tested and they just wouldn't do it. It was a
guy named Liddell Lee and he's gone now. And it's like the state should not be in the business of killing people because we the system is never going to be perfect. Even if everybody's well intentioned, it's not going to be perfect. And for people listening out there, and they've heard me say this on the show before, when we convict an innocent person and we keep them in prison, even when the authorities know they're innocent, that means that
the guilty person is free. Just like in Kevin Cooper's case, everybody knows it was the three white guys that did it. There's overwhelming evidence of that, and those guys were free to go out, and.
There's like, I mean, the guy's girlfriend called and said, I mean everyone that makes no sense, Like, wouldn't the community be more scared knowing that there is like some multiple people said it was three white guys and then just to know that they're not locked up and they have a black guy locked up instead, like that fear to me? Would I don't know. It is so so twisted, so.
Twisted, and it's not It's very common you know, in so many of the cases the Innocence Project, when we exonerate an innocent person with DNA, we then put the DNA in the national database and we often get a hit. I don't know if it's fifty percent of the time, and we were able to show who the actual perpetrator was.
And in an overwhelming percentage of those cases, that person has gone on and raped and murdered other people, innocent people, because they were free because the authorities didn't do their job. And sometimes there's a mistake. I understand nobody's prayer picked that. You know, everyone makes mistakes. I makes mistakes in my job.
But there's a not a lot of these cases like Kevin Cooper, where it was obvious from the beginning that he didn't do it, and they had that case came with instructions, just like the Central Park five did the Central Park five And I Interviewedduceef Salama last week in New York on this show. You know, in that case, they had every reason to suspect that it was this guy, Matthias Rayis. They were already watching him. He was a suspect in another similar rape and beating where the Central
Park Joggra was almost beaten to death. She lost seventy five percent of her blood. They knew it had to be him, they knew it was a single perpetrator, and they rested these five black kids just because black and hispanic, just because they could, and then the testing came back and they saw that none of the blood matched the blood of the perpetrator was there the seamen. It didn't match any of those kids, and they went ahead and
prosecuted them anyway. And then this Matthias Rayis guy went out and raped four other women and killed one of them in the apartment with her three children there. She was pregnant. I mean, it doesn't get worse, and she said, can I please just put my kids in the other room before you kill me? And then he did and he went ahead and killed her. And like that woman should be alive today, and I believe that the authority should be held responsible for her death because they knew
who it was. But they had so much media on that case. And that's another thing for people to be aware of when you're on a jury, when there's so much media around a case, and making a murderer made this point very well too, right, And you know, we can have a debate about that all day long. But Brendan Dacy is innocent, right, He's totally is he still in prison, But and that that I wanted to jump through the screen and that watched that movie and strangle somebody.
I was like, if I could jump, I mean so, but yeah, so in those cases, and Kevin Cooper is one of those cases where it's abundance thirty something years. Yeah, and he could have very well been executed. And there's so many Kevin Cooper's out there, and it had I mean, it has to change.
I heard the their DNA testing it though. I think that's finally I saw online.
Yeah, it's it's like it's it's a it's a massive problem. Look, I mean we were going to fix it. It's a huge challenge. But you know, nothing comes easy. I mean, here it is. Isn't today like Mandela's hundredth birthday or something like that. So what a way to celebrate by bringing attention to this amazing cause. And you know, I could literally sit here and talk to you all day. I see you're like a sponge. You're learning so much and such a sure you're not.
I don't know everything, And I love to ask questions. I love to listen to stories and just soak it all in and see what I can do next.
Yeah, well we're going to We're going to do big things together. I can see it now. I'm I'm just as you can tell I'm so excited that I can't stop talking because I just this is what gets me. As you can tell, I'm most excited like the thrill of being able to help, you know, Honora Jackson or Michelle Murphy, and to make a difference in the lives of those people who are just people like you and me, who one day we're just living their life and then
the justice system just collapsed on them. And well, first of all, my listeners know, if you get arrested for something and you didn't do it, don't say anything. The cops are not your friends. They're going to bring you in and they say, Kim, we just want to ask a few questions. The only thing you say is my name is Kim Dashian, here's my address, and I want a lawyer. That's it. And then shut up. After you say I want a lawyer. They're not allowed to talk
to you anymore. But if you start talking, they'll eventually get you to say almost anything. They'll say. You'll say you kidnap the Lindberg baby if they keep you in there long enough, you know what I mean. So, but so for people out there listening, you know, get involved, be woke, right serve on jury duty because it's so important someone else's life will be in your hands. And vote. I mean you have to vote. You have to to learn about these cases. Look at the DA's races, right,
there's such low turnout of these races. Get out there and vote for the progressive candidate because there are people like Larry Krasner who just got elected in Philadelphia, who's going to turn the system upside down, right, because he comes in and he goes, look, I'm not going to tolerate this, Like we're not going to lock up in and people, We're not going to prosecute people for these ridiculous low level non violent crimes, pod offenses, things like that,
Like we need progressive prosecutors because they hold all the power. And that goes back to what it was saying, which is that criminal defense attorneys' it's such a tilted system, right. You know, the scales of justice are supposed to be even. But if you're poor and you get caught in the system and you have a public defender who's overworked, underpaid,
maybe doesn't even know what they're doing. I mean we've had cases death penalty cases where the divorce lawyer did it or something like that, or like somebody or people who are drunk, or even in Texas, there was a case where the lawyer was asleep and the Court of Appeals in Texas the lawyer slept and the Court of Appeals ruled that because the guy appealed and said he was entitled to an attorney that was awake, and they said, no, no,
you're entitled to attorney, but not necessarily one that's awake. So we've seen cases where the attorney was drunk, where the attorney didn't show up. But even in the best case, public defenders are overworked, underpaid. They don't have the resources. In some states you have five hundred dollars to defend even a capital case. You can't hire investigators. Going back to what you said before, whereas the prosecutors, I didn't know that. Yeah, And the prosecutors have all this power.
They're able to decide, They're able to go to you and say listen. Ninety six percent of all felony convictions of America are the result of guilty please because the prosecutors have so much power, because they can go to an Alice Johnson they say listen, we're going to give
you life. In prison unless you plead guilty and you may not have even done anything, but your public defender you're looking, You're going that guy doesn't look like, oh, that woman doesn't look like they know what they're doing. I'm in big trouble here, Like they're stacked against me. You've got all these you know, and a jury comes in with an inherent bias thinking that if you're up on the stand, you must have done something. This has been proven in the study that was done by my
friend Josh Dubin. So you have a really like a Sophie's choice or a Hobson's choice, because you know you're facing these prosecutors and they have a reverse incentive, which is that they want convictions. They don't necessarily want justice for them, to me, it is right.
They'd rather have a guilty person out there then and just to get a.
Conviction and get it off their desk, and then they go home and then go home and have a nice dinner and go to sleep, watch a little TV. And it's like, I don't understand the lack of humanity, that that's inherent and that so Kim, like I said, I could literally talk to you all day. I really enjoy it, but I don't want to keep you here all day, and but I do want to. I have a tradition here on Ralph Convictions, and listeners know they're used to this,
and this is my favorite part of the show. Usually it's an EXONNAI sitting where you are, or someone who is incarcerated, but this part of the show is where I shut up and I say to you, first of all, Kim, thank you for being here and taking your time. I know you could be doing a million other things, but for having and lending your voice to the movement. And now I just want to say, turn the mic over to you and say what if you want to leave our audience with any thoughts at all? What would they be?
Just that I didn't know anything going into this, and I still don't know everything. I'm learning so much as I go, but I know that I have a voice, and so I am happy to use it. So if you feel passionate about this at all, to anyone just out there listening, there's so much you can do to help, and I just encourage.
You to do that. Wise words, and I want to once again thank you. That's been a real pleasure for me today.
It was nice to meet you.
Thank you yeah, and thanks for being here. And once again you've been listening to a very special episode of Wrongful Conviction with Kim Kardashian and Jason Flamm don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how
to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one