"DON'T DO THE CRIME, IF YOU CAN'T DO THE TIME...."

A Seattle Police officer, checking on a stolen car in south Seattle, shot and killed suspected Lakewood cop killer Maurice Clemmons, police announced this morning. The shooting ended a two-day manhunt here and in the Tacoma area after ex-con Clemmons fled the Sunday morning Pierce County crime scene where four Lakewood police officers were ambushed in a coffee shop.

Nine years ago, Clemmons was serving a 35-year prison term in Arkansas for armed robbery but his sentence was commuted by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee. Recently he was charged in Pierce County for third-degree assault on a police officer and the rape of a child.

This incident is surely to intensify the debate being heard by the Supreme Court...Should juvenile offenders face life behind bars?

Nationwide, there are more than 2,200 juveniles serving sentences of life without parole. That figure includes dozens of children as young as 13 years old. Four years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision that executing anyone for a crime committed when he or she was younger than 18 is unconstitutional.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2009/11/11/supreme-court-weighs-juvenile-life-sentences.html

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2009/12/lakewood_cop_killer_maurice_cl.php