TACOMA, Wash. — The second retrial of a man accused of being the getaway driver for Maurice Clemmons, who killed four Lakewood police officers in 2009, ended in a second hung jury.
The judge declared a mistrial on Thursday, scheduling a new trial to start on April 20.
Darcus Allen drove Clemmons to and from the coffee shop in Parkland where Clemmons shot and killed Lakewood Sgt. Mark Renninger and officers Greg Richards, Tina Griswold and Ronald Owens as they sat preparing for their Sunday morning shift.
Darcus Allen was originally charged and convicted of four counts of first-degree murder in 2011. However, the jury acquitted him of four "capital punishment aggravators," alleging that Allen knew the victims would be police officers and that there were multiple victims or that the killings were planned. Those factors would have led to an automatic sentence of life in prison.
The Washington State Supreme Court vacated Allen's murder convictions in 2015 after finding the prosecutor at his trial made "improper statements" during the closing argument. In a 2018 decision, the state Supreme Court also held that Allen could not be retried on the capital punishment aggravators because he was previously acquitted of them.
Allen was retried on four counts of first-degree murder related to his role in the killings beginning in October of 2022. That trial ended in a hung jury in November.
Allen and his attorney originally tried to have the new charges dismissed, claiming they would violate the double jeopardy clause, however, the motion was rejected by the state trial court and the court of appeals, and the state Supreme Court declined to review the case. A petition filed for federal habeas relief was also dismissed.