Kim Kardashian West visited death row inmate Julius Jones in prison on Monday as part of an ongoing appeal to grant him clemency.
Kardashian West visited Jones at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, along with Jones’s attorney Dale Baich, according to a news release. She also met Jones’s family in Oklahoma City.
Jones was convicted of murder in 1999, after 45-year-old Paul Howell was fatally shot in Edmond, Oklahoma. Jones, now 40, has maintained his innocence and has argued that a racist juror tainted the outcome of his trial. His mother says Jones was at home with his family at the time of Howell’s death.
Kardashian West became involved in the campaign to obtain clemency for Jones after watching the 2018 ABC documentary The Last Defense, which focuses on Jones and another death row inmate. The programme was executive-produced by Viola Davis and her husband Julius Tennon.
This isn’t the first time that West has voiced support for Jones. In October 2019, she urged her Twitter followers to support him by asking the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, as well as Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, to give “careful and thoughtful consideration” to Jones’s petition to have his death sentence commuted.
The Independent has contacted Kardashian West’s representative for more information.
Kardashian West has advocated for criminal justice reform, championing several cases.
In March, she visited the White House along with former prisoners to “discuss more change that our justice system desperately needs”.
