Lawyers for Hoover, 74, say his health is deteriorating.
Lawyers for Larry Hoover, founder of the Gangster Disciples, are asking Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to grant him state clemency following Donald Trump’s commutation of his federal life sentence earlier this year.
“To deny clemency now is not a neutral act,” attorney Justin Moore said in the petition. “It is a willful decision to let a 74-year-old man with significant health challenges die in a cage.”
Despite receiving federal clemency from Trump in May, Hoover still faces a state sentence for his 1973 murder conviction. His lawyers say he remains in “extreme conditions of confinement” at the Colorado State Penitentiary. Since his transfer from the supermax, they allege, he has been subjected to “excruciatingly intense labor,” including kitchen duties that require stacking trays by the dozens under strict time pressure.
Hoover’s 39-page clemency petition is now before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board and Gov. Pritzker, featuring two personal letters where he reflects on his decades-long journey toward redemption and acknowledges the “disservice” he has done himself by remaining silent about his public persona.
“I am no longer the Larry Hoover people sometimes talk about, or he who is written about in the papers, or the crime figure described by the government. That man has over these many years, transformed into the man I am today. It is true that some men never learn, or that prison makes some into monsters; I’ve seen it, but for me, over time, prison — this prison in particular — became a place of reflection.”
In his letter, Hoover expressed “immense remorse” for the damage caused by his past actions, admitting he squandered his talents on decisions that harmed Chicago, his community, and society at large. He stressed that he has long renounced all ties to the Gangster Disciples and any criminal activity, affirming that he wants nothing to do with that life “now and forever.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
