Parolee jailed, released 3 times before slayings

A Lakewood, Wash., police officer tears up during a news conference Monday on Sunday’s fatal shooting of four Lakewood officers at a coffee shop. A murder warrant has been issued for former Arkansas resident Maurice Clemmons, 37, who was the subject of an intense manhunt Monday.
A Lakewood, Wash., police officer tears up during a news conference Monday on Sunday’s fatal shooting of four Lakewood officers at a coffee shop. A murder warrant has been issued for former Arkansas resident Maurice Clemmons, 37, who was the subject of an intense manhunt Monday.

— The man wanted in the fatal shooting of four police officers Sunday had been jailed three times this year in Washington state but was released each time - despite being on parole for armed robbery convictions in Arkansas, authorities said Monday.

Maurice Clemmons, 37, who served two prison stints in Arkansas for robbery convictions and who was granted clemency by former Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2000, was arrested in Pierce County in Washington on May 9 on charges of assaulting a police officer and causing malicious mischief, said Stephen Penner, deputy prosecuting attorney for Pierce County. The next day,Clemmons was released on $40,000 bond.

On July 1, Clemmons was arrested again, this time charged with second-degree rape of a child, Penner said. By that time, Arkansas parole officials had issued a warrant allowing Washington state authorities to hold Clemmons without bail.

That warrant was rescinded July 22, Penner said. After posting a $150,000 bond, Clemmons was again released.

“We contacted [Arkansas authorities] to confirm, both by teletype and also by telephone, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?” Penner said. “Once they said, ‘Yeah, we do,’ then we had no choice.”

On Monday, Arkansas Department of Community Correction spokesman Rhonda Sharp said Arkansas officials issued a warrant for Clemmons’ arrest on May 28 at the request of parole officials in Washington after he stopped reporting to his parole officer. After Clemmons was taken into custody, the warrant was rescinded.

In October, the Arkansas Parole Board issued another hold warrant, also at the request of Washington officials, in light of the new rape and other charges. At the time, Clemmons was in custody, serving time for a parole violation, Penner said, adding that he didn’t know the nature of that violation.

As a sanction for the violation, Clemmons was jailed in Washington from late September until Nov. 23, when he was released.

However, Sharp said the second warrant remains “active,” but she didn’t know whether it was ever served.

“We requested that Washington State notify us once the pending charges were adjudicated,” Sharp said, referring to the rape count and other charges.

Six days later, a man - identified by authorities as Clemmons - walked into a coffee shop in Parkland, Wash., about 35 miles north of Seattle, and gunned down four city police officers. On Monday, authorities issued a warrant for Clemmons’ arrest on four counts of first-degree murder.

As the search for Clemmons continued Monday, critics questioned why Clemmons had been repeatedly set free despite a record of several convictions for violent offenses over the past 20 years.

“This guy should have never been on the street,” Brian D.Wurts, president of the police union in Lakewood, Wash., told The Associated Press. “Our elected officials need to find out why these people are out.”

In a statement Sunday, Huckabee blamed the shootings on a “series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state.”

“It appears that he has continued to have a string of criminal and psychotic behavior but was not kept incarcerated by either state,” Huckabee said in the statement. “This is a horrible and tragic event and if found and convicted the offender should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

Clemmons was on probation when he began his first prison stint in 1989 when he was just 17. He was sentenced in Pulaski County to five years in prison for a robbery charge, said Dina Tyler, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction. Convictions in separate cases for aggravated robbery, burglary, theft, firearm possession and probation violations later added 103 years.

Applying to Huckabee for clemency in 2000, Clemmons wrote that at the time of his crimes, he had just moved from Seattle to a neighborhood in Arkansas that was “crime infested.” He said he “did not possess the social skills and/or the mental tools and ability to resist the negative peer pressure that was heavily placed upon me.”

He acknowledged that his prison record reflected “problems,” but said his mother’s death while he was in prison had “effected change for the good in my heart.”

“Where once stood a young (16) sixteen-year-old misguided fool, who’s own life he was unable to rule. Now stands a 27-year-old man who has learned through the ‘school of hard knocks’ to appreciate and respect the rights of others,” Clemmons wrote.

Among those who advocated for Clemmons was Pulaski County Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey, who had presided over Clemmons’ request for a new trial on some of the charges. Humphrey granted the request, which cited ineffective assistance of counsel, but was overruled by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Responding to a request for comment from the Parole Board, which makes recommendations on clemency requests, Humphrey noted Clemmons’ age at the time of his convictions and said his sentences on eight felony charges should have been run at the same time instead of back-to-back.

“I thought there was an opportunity for rehabilitation, given what was before me,” Humphrey said Monday, adding that he had never met Clemmons outside of court.

The Parole Board, then known as the Post Prison Transfer Board, recommended clemency, and Huckabee granted it on May 2, 2000, citing Clemmons’ age and noting that no law enforcement agencies had objected to his release. He was released on parole in August 2000.

On Monday, Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley said his office has a policy of objecting to clemency requests and that he didn’t know why there isn’t an objection on file with the Parole Board in Clemmons’ case.

“All I can surmise is that we never got the notice that he was up for clemency until it was a done deal,” Jegley said. He added, “That wouldn’t havemade any difference anyway. I objected to hundreds of others and they always got out.”

Less than a year after his 2000 release, Clemmons went back to prison after being sentenced in Ouachita County in July 2001 to 10 years in prison for robbery. Three months earlier, the Little Rock Police Department had also obtained a warrant for Clemmons’ arrest on an aggravated robbery charge, but the warrant was not served until March 18, 2004, the same day Clemmons was released on parole.

Clemmons’ attorney, Stephen Morley, argued that authorities had waited too long to serve the warrant, and prosecutors dropped the charge in August of that year.

Jegley said the delay in serving the warrant was a factor in deciding to drop the charges, but added that “there were problems with the proof” in the case.

“We had trouble finding witnesses, and there were other proof problems that I don’t care to get into,” Jegley said.

In June 2004, Clemmons stopped by to see Humphrey with his fiancee, Nicole Cheryleen Smith, then 32. He had brought a marriage license. Humphrey performed the ceremony in his office.

“He seemed like he was a person who had gotten his head on straight,” Humphrey said. “He was making an effort to do right.”

Sometime that year, Clemmons moved to Washington state, and parole officials there took over responsibility for his supervision. He is scheduled to be on parole until Sept. 19, 2021.

Information for this article was contributed by Jacob Quinn Sanders and John Lynch of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/01/2009

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