President Donald Trump granted clemency to Alice Marie Johnson, one of many people of colour behind bars for life because of a nonviolent drug offence, Axios reported. The pardon comes just days after the president meet with Kim Kardashian West, a Johnson supporter, at the White House to discuss prison reform.
Johnson is a 63-year-old woman from Tennessee who was sentenced to life in prison for the first-time offence.
In 1993, Johnson was arrested after working with a group of people who transported cocaine. She said her involvement stemmed from hitting rock bottom in her personal life: In the early 1990s, she had gone through a divorce, a bankruptcy that led her to lose her house, and her youngest son was killed in a motorcycle accident.
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Johnson alleges she never actually sold or dealt drugs, and that her role in the group was that of a "telephone mule" who passed messages along. Nevertheless, she was convicted of conspiracy to sell cocaine and money laundering, which led to a sentence of life plus 25 years in federal prison — despite it being her first offence.
Mass incarceration is one the United States's most urgent problems, particularly for people of colour: America makes up about 5% of the global population but has about 21% of the world’s prisoners. For example, Black and white people use drugs at a similar rate, but the imprisonment rate for Black folks is more than five times the rate of white people.
Kardashian West took special interest in Johnson's case back in October. Since then, she recruited her lawyer Shawn Holley to help Johnson's clemency campaign and met with Trump's son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner to discuss the possibility of a pardon. After meeting the president in late May, Kardashian West tweeted: "I would like to thank President Trump for his time this afternoon. It is our hope that the President will grant clemency to Ms. Alice Marie Johnson who is serving a life sentence for a first-time, non-violent drug offence."
She added, "We are optimistic about Ms. Johnson’s future and hopeful that she —and so many like her — will get a second chance at life."
I would like to thank President Trump for his time this afternoon. It is our hope that the President will grant clemency to Ms. Alice Marie Johnson who is serving a life sentence for a first-time, non-violent drug offense.
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) May 31, 2018
We are optimistic about Ms. Johnson’s future and hopeful that she —and so many like her—will get a second chance at life.
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) May 31, 2018
President Barack Obama pardoned 231 individuals, many who had similar drug-related charges to those of Johnson's, in December 2016. It's unclear why she wasn't in the group.
So far, Trump has issued a half dozen pardons, including to Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff known for violating the civil rights of people of colour who was convicted of contempt of the court last year; Irve Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in 2007; and conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations back in 2014.