Biden commuted life sentence of former Gangster Disciples co-chairman Gregory Shell
In one of his last official acts, former President Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of Gangster Disciples co-chairman Gregory Shell, one of almost 2,500 "non-violent" drug offenders to whom he granted clemency.
The Biden administration didn't provide details about when any of the people he granted clemency would be freed from prison. The order said the president would "commute the total sentence of imprisonment" of everyone on the list.
On Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website said Shell remained at the federal maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, where he and Gangster Disciples kingpin Larry Hoover are serving life sentences.
Biden released a statement explaining his mass commutations, saying, "This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars.”
Biden, when he was a U.S. senator, had supported some of the harsh decades-old drug sentences his latest action was designed to fix.
Unlike pardons, commutations don't provide forgiveness for a crime, but both actions serve to cut or eliminate federal prison terms. Pardons also help ex-offenders get jobs and restore their civil rights, such as voting and possessing guns.
Shell and Hoover both have separate requests before the U.S. District Court in Chicago asking for reductions of their federal prison terms. They're seeking relief under the First Step Act, a 2018 law signed by President Donald Trump in his first term. It dealt, in part, with historic sentencing disparities for crack cocaine and power cocaine.
Hoover, 74, was convicted of murder after a trial in state court in December 1973 and a judge sentenced him to 150 to 200 years in state prison. Decades later, prosecutors alleged that Hoover kept running the gang from prison. After a highly publicized trial, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber sentenced the gang leader in 1998 to life in prison for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.
In recent months, prosecutors have strongly urged U.S. District Judge Robert Blakey to keep Hoover and Shell in prison. They say Shell, the second-ranking leader of the GDs, ruled over tens of thousands of the gang's members in Chicago and other cities.
Shell took orders from Hoover, who was in prison for his murder conviction, and visited the kinpin behind bars about 100 times, prosecutors say. They noted that Shell was also convicted of murder in the 1970s. He was later convicted of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise along with Hoover and others.
"Shell has well earned his life sentence and he is not the type of defendant Congress intended to benefit in enacting the First Step Act," federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing in September.
Prosecutors said that if Shell were sentenced today, he would get the same life prison term because "the sentencing court found that he was second-in-command of a gang with daily profits that totaled $300,000, or 4.5 kilograms of crack cocaine, the profits of which amounted to a whopping $109 million in gross receipts each year from the sale of narcotics."
In October, though, Shell's attorney Andréa Gambino called for his release, saying in a court filing that he wasn't accused or convicted of violent crimes in his federal case and that a life sentence would be "highly unlikely" now.
Asked Tuesday about Shell's commutation, Gambino said, "We're very pleased. This is a positive first step toward correcting the draconian sentence imposed on Mr. Shell three decades ago and reuniting him with his many family members and friends."
In recent years, other former members of Hoover's inner circle, including Johnny "Crusher" Jackson, have been granted early release from prison under the First Step Act.