Kim Kardashian’s Instagram shows off her bleach-blonde hair and a new line of Skims bodysuits — alongside an interview with a man convicted of triple homicide. Kim is advertising for her new true crime podcast, “The System: The Case of Kevin Keith.” The podcast’s boldfaced title is a challenge: can we take Kim Kardashian seriously in a conversation about criminal justice reform?
I take on the challenge, but I’m apprehensive right away. The first episode, “Life & Death,” opens with an audio recreation of the crime scene that left three dead and the podcast’s namesake, Kevin Keith, behind bars. The muted sirens and police radio is reminiscent of the opening sequences of Netflix’s hit show Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. I’m afraid that, like Monster, “The System” will be another piece of true crime media that sensationalizes and capitalizes on tragedy.
“Our system is so f*cked up.”
Kim Kardashian, The System, episode 1, October 2022
A male voice straight out of a true crime documentary lays down a timeline of Keith’s arrest. Keith, a Black man born and raised in rural Crestline, Ohio, was arrested in February of 1994 for the murders of Marichell Chatman; her 4-year-old daughter, Marchae; and Marichell’s aunt, Linda Chatman. Police did not question Keith before making the arrest, nor did they have any forensic evidence linking him to the crime. In May of the same year, an all-white jury in Bucyrus, Ohio, convicted Keith of the murders and sentenced him to death.
The sinister audio production fades out, and I hear Kim’s voice over crackling phone static. She is interviewing Keith, who has been serving a life sentence without parole since his original death sentence was given in 1995. They discuss the potential for the podcast to raise awareness for his case and others like it. “I think it’s so important for people to understand that our system is so f*cked up,” Kim says to Keith. Keith’s family and friends agree and have spent the last 28 years fighting to reduce Keith’s sentence.
Our system really is so f*cked up. Studies estimate up to five percent of men sentenced to death are innocent, though less than half as many are actually exonerated and freed from death row. According to the Georgia Innocence Project, Black people are up to seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than innocent white people. In addition to wrongful convictions, Black men face disproportionately cruel incarceration experiences, and Black youth struggle to overcome the legacy of disadvantage fueled by the school-to-prison pipeline.
These systemic injustices first came under Kim Kardashian’s radar in the form of a 2017 tweet about Alice Marie Johnson. Johnson was serving a life sentence without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense she committed in 1996. Kardashian publicized her story, hired a new legal team on Johnson’s behalf, and called up Ivanka Trump so she could eventually meet with Donald Trump in the White House. Trump commuted Johnson’s sentence, granting her a full pardon in 2020, and invited Kardashian back to the White House to give a speech on criminal justice reform. Since then, Kim has contributed her platform and money to pardoning more inmates, including Momolu Stewart and Dawn Jackson.
Kim’s activism has met its fair share of critics. The New Yorker described Kim’s 2018 meeting with Trump as a “spectacle of horrors” and a “stand-in for the reflective, responsible work of actual public service.” Some speculate that Trump’s participation was an attempt to gain Black voters. They also question Kardashian’s intentions, citing her infamous persona and the reality TV cameras that follow her everywhere as proof that her activism is a classic celebrity maneuver for image and publicity. But I can think of easier ways for Kim to generate controversy than to adopt an unpopular progressive political opinion, train to become a lawyer and help to pardon multiple inmates with unjust sentences. I respect Kim for putting her money and influence behind criminal justice reform in a country where 60% of adults favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder.
Last week, two surviving victims of the 1994 Ohio murders claimed that “The System” producers did not contact them prior to release. The producers denied these claims, but it’s hard not to think of how Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story depicted Dahmer’s gruesome murders without reaching out to the families of his victims. Eric Perry, a cousin of Dahmer victim Errol Lindsey, wrote on Twitter: “It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what?” Meanwhile, Monster became Netflix’s second most-watched English-language series of all time.
In the case of Monster, impact overshadowed intent. Producers Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan claim that they wanted to expose the institutional failures that allowed Jeffrey Dahmer to murder 17 men and boys, mostly people of color, with little suspicion from law enforcement. Nevertheless, Monster succeeded mostly in romanticizing a serial killer and selling the pain of his victims without regard to their families.
I hope that these comparisons don’t foreshadow the evolution of “The System” into another piece of callous true crime media — because criminal justice reform deserves to be taken seriously, now as much as ever.