The Washington Supreme Court has ruled the man who drove Lakewood police killer Maurice Clemmons to and from the scene where he gunned down four officers in 2009 will not face aggravated murder charges at his retrial.
At his first trial, jurors convicted Dorcus Allen of first-degree murder, but they did not find him guilty of aggravating factors that would lead to an automatic sentence of life in prison without release. That conviction was overturned, and Pierce County prosecutors wanted to try him once again for aggravated murder.
But lower courts ruled – and the high court unanimously agreed Thursday – that to try Allen again on the aggravating factors would violate his constitutional right not to be tried twice for the same crime. Allen will still be re-tried on first-degree murder charges.
Allen drove Clemmons to a coffee shop where he killed the four officers, and helped him get away.
The manhunt for Clemmons ended two days later when he was shot and killed by a police officer in Seattle. (AP)
