Maurice Clemmons was 16 when he was sentenced to, among other things, two 30-year terms in prison for burglary and a violent, armed purse-snatching in Little Rock, Ark. But in May 2000, after 11 years behind bars, he wrote an impassioned letter to then Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, an ordained pastor. "I have never done anything good for God," Clemmons wrote, asking for clemency. "Now, I'm humbly appealing to you for a brand new start." Huckabee commuted the sentence, and Clemmons got out on parole. But Clemmons never went on to do anything good for God. Instead, he almost immediately violated his parole and returned to jail. In and out of prison on various degrees of parole and clemency, he lived a life of crime. He moved west to Seattle, where he had grown up, to try to start a lawn-care business. But in May, he began acting and speaking erratically, telling people he could fly and that his role as the Messiah would be acknowledged by President Obama. He attacked his neighbors. He sexually assaulted two young girls. Arrested in July, he posted $40,000 bail on Nov. 23. Then, on the morning of Nov. 29, he walked into a suburban Tacoma coffee shop and shot four police officers while they were working on their laptop computers. An intense two-day manhunt ended with Clemmons' being shot to death in the early hours of Dec. 1. But his life raised many questions about the management of the country's criminal underclass issues that will reverberate for a long time.
The Top 10 Everything of 2009
- Top 10 Albums
- Top 10 Animal Stories
- Top 10 Apologies
- Top 10 Art Exhibitions
- Top 10 Awkward Moments
- Top 10 Best Business Deals
- Top 10 Breakups
- Top 10 Buzzwords
- Top 10 Children's Books
- Top 10 Crime Stories
- Top 10 Editorial Cartoons
- Top 10 Facebook Stories
- Top 10 Fashion Faux Pas
- Top 10 Fashion Moments
- Top 10 Feuds
- Top 10 Fiction Books
- Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities
- Top 10 Gadgets
- Top 10 Green Ideas
- Top 10 Heroes
- Top 10 iPhone Apps
- Top 10 Late-Night Jokes
- Top 10 Magazine Covers
- Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs
- Top 10 Movie Performances
- Top 10 Movies
- Top 10 New Species
- Top 10 News Stories
- Top 10 Nonfiction Books
- Top 10 Oddball News Stories
- Top 10 Pariahs
- Top 10 Pictures of the Year
- Top 10 Plays and Musicals
- Top 10 Political Gaffes
- Top 10 Quotes
- Top 10 Religion Stories
- Top 10 Scandals
- Top 10 Scientific Discoveries
- Top 10 Songs
- Top 10 Sports Moments
- Top 10 T-Shirt-Worthy Slogans
- Top 10 TV Ads
- Top 10 TV Episodes
- Top 10 TV Series
- Top 10 Tweets
- Top 10 Underreported Stories
- Top 10 Untruths
- Top 10 Video Games
- Top 10 Viral Videos
- Top 10 Worst Biz Deals
TIME charts the highs and lows of the past year in 50 wide-ranging lists