My name is Donald “C-Note” Hooker, the world’s most prolific prison artist. On February 22, 1997, I was arrested, and later convicted of a nonviolent-wobbler. I received a sentence of 35 years to Life, under California’s Three Strikes Law.
In the spring of 2025, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), informed me, I qualified as an indeterminately-sentenced nonviolent offender under Prop 57, whose Nonviolent Parole Eligibility Date (NEPD) is February 23, 2001. This was a quarter of a century ago. However, I was being informed they are going to deny me, my state constitutional right to a parole board hearing under Prop 57.
Later that spring, using the previous 10-months, as a time-period, CDCR unjustly awarded me 10-years worth of work group credits. As a result, it altered my Minimum Eligible Release Date (MERD), from May 1, 2028, to May 18, 2025. I was given an initial parole hearing date of September 4, 2025, under the MERD parole grant program.
MERD was created in 1978, and has an 86% parole denial rate; while NEPD was created in 2019, and has a 74% denial rate. Upon further investigation, all NEPD, who were eligible for a parole hearing prior to January 1, 2019, were to have their initial parole hearing, no later than December 31, 2021, (15 CCR 2449.32(b).)
When I went through the CDCR’s administrative appeal process to reinstate my initial parole hearing on September 4, 2025, as NEPD, or I will boycott the hearing in protest, they never addressed the merits of my claim. On September 4th, I boycotted the parole hearing, and it was postponed, due to a CDCR paperwork screwup.
On September 21, 2025, I began a hunger strike in protest of my continued incarceration, in violation of my Prop 57 parole eligibility status. I ended the hunger strike, two weeks later, on October 4, 2025. “Hunger Striking for True Freedom,” the official title of this 2-week hunger strike, became the first prisoner hunger strike in U.S. history to challenge a state’s parole board system.
My new initial parole hearing date was December 30, 2025. The parole grant program to give it jurisdictional legitimacy was under the Elderly Parole Eligibility Date (EPED). At the hearing, I cited BPH Form 1002, which states, when qualifying for multiple parole grants, the one that comes first will be the controlling parole grant application. In my case, it would be NEPD. After 3-hours, in which I threatened to walk out of the hearing, the Board Of Parole Hearings (BOPH), postponed the hearing to give their legal team time to look into my Nonviolent Parole Eligibility Date of February 23, 2001.
When government officials chastise me, as to, “Why does it matter?” I tell them, “It matters to me. It matters to the near supermajority of California voters, who stood in inclement weather, on a first Tuesday in November, who voted for this. It’s Governor Brown’s signature piece of legislation, and it’s the only parole application grant that’s enshrined in our state’s constitution. It’s a big deal.”
CALL TO ACTION: Right now, any assistance you can provide will be highly appreciated. Some of our past CTAs that you can take right now have been:
• Email this post to 10 people;
• Share the link Mumia’s Audio on C-Note’s Hunger Strike;
• Call California Governor Gavin Newsom to release Prop 57, nonviolent, Donald “C-Note” Hooker K94063, or he won’t get your vote in the Democratic Presidential primary (916) 445-2841;
• Offer moral support by writing or electronically messaging C-Note on the GTL Getting Out App; or
Provide financial support through Jpay.com; Donald Hooker K94063, POB 4430, Lancaster, CA 93539.
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