Larry Hoover, founder of a notorious Chicago street gang who has spent the past three decades in solitary confinement in federal prison, was granted clemency by President Donald Trump on Wednesday — but his legal troubles are far from over.
Hoover’s six life-term federal sentences have been commuted to time served, but he will serve the remainder of a 200-year sentence in state prison for the 1973 murder of 19-year-old William “Pooky” Young, a neighborhood drug dealer.
Trump granted a round of clemency applications that included Hoover, founder of the Gangster Disciples.
Hoover, 75, has been incarcerated in a maximum security federal prison in Florence, Colorado, since 1997 and will be transferred back to an Illinois state prison. His attorneys with the Bonjean Law Group said in a statement to ABC News that they are “thrilled” that Trump answered Hoover’s clemency request.
His federal sentence for conspiracy, extortion, and money laundering charges stemmed from his leadership of the Gangster Disciples since the late 1960s. Hoover operated a free lunch program for children in low-income neighborhoods throughout Chicago, and his influence trickled down across generations, especially into hip-hop culture.
Lance Williams, professor of Urban Community Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, acknowledges that while the wiping out of Hoover’s federal charges would hold significant symbolic weight in Chicago, the impact on young people at the street level would be minimal.
“It’s important to understand that the Gangster Disciples, like all other historical Chicago Black street organizations like the Stones, Vice Lords and others of today, bear little resemblance to the hierarchical organization that existed prior to Mr. Hoover’s fed[eral] conviction,” Williams told Capital B.
“The traditional gang structure has radically fractured into decentralized, horizontally organized cliques with no central leadership, often functioning more as factions than as structured street organizations.”
The contemporary conditions of the Chicago street scene were thrust into the limelight in the early 2010s, when then-teenager Chief Keef popularized the subgenre of drill rap, which captured the raw violence and chaotic turf wars of a more disjointed gang landscape.
Beyond the symbolic significance, Williams said a commutation of Hoover’s federal sentence could still carry tangible value.
“Mr. Hoover’s potential release could offer an opportunity for restorative justice and public reflection on the deeper structural force, such as concentrated poverty, housing displacement, and failed public policies — that have contributed to Chicago’s violence problem far more than any single individual,” he said.
Read More: Larry Hoover’s Pardon Puts Spotlight on Atlanta’s Own Gangster Disciples History
The push for Hoover’s freedom initially reached presidential heights through hip-hop in 2018 when rapper Kanye West visited the Oval Office and appealed directly to Trump for him to commute Hoover’s sentence. Later, in 2021, West and rapper Drake set aside a long-standing beef to perform together and host a “Free Larry Hoover” benefit concert at the L.A. Coliseum, which was streamed live on Amazon Prime.
Trump also issued 16 pardons and five other commutations this week. Since taking office for a second term in January, he has granted clemency to nearly 2,000 people.
Trump’s clemency announcements reverberated beyond high-profile figures like Hoover. Gary, Indiana, native Charles “Duke” Tanner, who was released from prison in 2020 after Trump commuted his life sentence, received a full pardon from the president this week. The full pardon means he will no longer have to report to a parole officer. Tanner, a former professional boxer, had been serving a life sentence after being convicted of possessing and conspiring to distribute cocaine.
“I got a call that the president had read over my petition and had signed me a full presidential pardon and my record was clean. No more probation, no more anything; I’m a free man. I just jumped for joy,” Tanner told Capital B.
Tanner said when Trump first commuted his sentence in 2020, he still faced the challenges that many formerly incarcerated people encounter when they try to integrate back into society.
“They gave me 10 years of supervised release,” Tanner said. “After one year, you are supposed to get off, so I requested it for two years in a row, and they kept denying me even though I felt I had done everything that was required.”
Despite the supervised release, Tanner managed to remain productive. He has visited the White House several times, serves as an America First Policy Institute Athletes for America Ambassador, and works with local governments to develop public housing for those in need.
Tanner now has his sights set on his hometown.
“I love the way Mayor Eddie Melton is handling things,” he said.
“We see the things he’s doing, especially with the new convention center. I want to come home and get more involved with housing. That’s a major goal, and that’s why I’m in this field. Gary, Indiana, is going to be one of the most popular cities in the world in the next couple of years once we help the development.”
Tanner’s story also drew praise from national criminal justice advocates.
“We’re thrilled to celebrate Duke Tanner’s pardon and his freedom from supervised release,” said Jessica Jackson, CEO of REFORM Alliance, in a statement to Capital B.
“His spotless record, relentless work ethic and commitment to his family and community should have earned an early termination long ago, yet he needed [a] presidential pardon to regain his freedom. That’s one reason why we are working on legislation like the Safer Supervision Act, to close that gap by giving people who prove they are ready a clear, fair off-ramp from supervision.”
While Jackson points to policy change as the key to long-term impact, for Tanner, the focus is personal. After spending nearly two decades behind bars, he says the next step is helping others find a path out of the system — especially those still waiting for the kind of second chance he received.
“It took two life sentences and almost 17 years of me not being there when my mother and father passed, not being able to teach my son how to ride a bike or graduate high school,” Tanner said. “All this for what? But if we help develop the people and be there for them and give them an outlook, we can come together as a collective. That’s what a second chance is about.”