SALISBURY -- In two weeks, Duran Monroe Moss is scheduled to step again into a Wicomico County Circuit Courtroom.

Duran Moss' 2004 charges never made it to the courtroom

It is familiar territory for the 26-year-old Salisbury man. Court records and law enforcement interviews show Moss to be a menacing figure in what is often called the justice system's revolving door.

Previous jail time for Duran Moss

Date Charges included Pleaded Disposition Jail time

Nov. 20, 1999 Disorderly conduct Not guilty Guilty Three days

Nov. 6, 2000 Obstructing and hindering Guilty Guilty 12 months (six suspended)

May 13, 2003 Obstructing and hindering Guilty Guilty 44 days

Sept. 16, 2003 Driving a vehicle on a Guilty with agreement Guilty 54 days

suspended license

 The complete court history of Duran Moss, including charges faced that did not result in jail time, can be viewed on the state of Maryland's judicial records Web site, http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/inquiry/inquiry-index.jsp.

Type in Moss's name and click "search."

 Moss' lengthy relationship with the law enforcement may have started as early as 1998, when police stopped him at the intersection of Route 50 and Booth Street. Age 16 at the time, Moss was charged with driving without a license.

Even though the charge was minor, the young man's turbulent legal paper trail would eventually take many twists and turns with more serious and violent criminal crimes over a decade.

Now 26, Moss faces charges in connection with the murder of Kevin Shawn Tull Jr., who was shot at Runaway Bay Apartments in north Salisbury in May.

If convicted, Moss could spend anywhere from 20 years up to the rest of his life in prison.

This is not the first time Moss has been charged in a violent crime. In 2004, he was charged with armed robbery, assault and attempted first- and second-degree murder.

Moss didn't get his day in court, however. No jury decided his fate; Wicomico prosecutors said they couldn't prosecute the case.

Now, Moss' list of criminal charges leaves some people wondering whether the Tull case will make it to trial Aug. 15.

Will he be convicted or will he walk out on the other side of the revolving door a free man? But the incalculable question for some is: Why did the 2004 attempted murder case never make it to trial?

"Where's the money?"

Starla Stanley went to bed July 22, 2004, and fell asleep with her 2-year-old son. She woke up when she heard the bedroom door swing open.

She saw two shadows and her boyfriend, Violitus Scott, on the floor.

According to court documents, Stanley would later tell police that the two shadows standing in her bedroom were her ex-boyfriend, Timothy Hall, and Duran Moss.

"Where's the money, Vi?" Hall allegedly yelled at Scott as he waved a gun around the room.

Then Hall grabbed Stanley.

"We're going to kill your son if you don't give us the money," he told her.

At the time, Stanley said she didn't know who was robbing her, according to court documents. One of the men was dressed completely in black, except for a blue handkerchief over his face. The other robber wore all black, with his face covered by a hoodie.

Stanley told him her money was in her car.

"It better be, or I'm going to kill you!" came the reply.

Meanwhile, according to Stanley's statement to police, Moss was on top of Scott, beating him.

Hall took his gun and Stanley outside to the car; Moss followed. When he couldn't get in, Moss grabbed a block of wood from the side of the house and knocked out the back passenger side window.

Moss and Hall grabbed Stanley and took her back into the bedroom, according to court documents. Her son was still in the bedroom, sitting on the floor next to some money. She reached down, picked him and the money up and gave the cash to Moss and Hall.

Stanley told police the two men left the house with $2,000 she and Scott planned to use for a trip to Atlantic City. Stanley ran across the street and called 911.

According to Stanley's statement, Moss never spoke a word during the robbery.

More than a month after the incident, a detective spoke with Stanley by phone. Stanley said Hall admitted to robbing her and Scott. Hall told her Moss was the other man with him.

As a result, Moss found himself facing 31 charges. The most serious included attempted murder, assault and armed robbery. Potential jail time for the charges ranged from as little as three years up to life imprisonment.

In the end, Moss would serve none. The charges against both Moss and Hall were dismissed.

Rules of Evidence

The snag in the armed robbery case came when Stanley recanted her statement and refused to cooperate with prosecutors. Hall is the father of her child, and she did not want to testify against her "baby's daddy," according to a note in the court files.

Her refusal to cooperate with law enforcement and the prosecution had a ripple effect. Since her statement that Moss was involved in the robbery was oral and recorded by some other means, the State's Attorney's Office would not be able to use it in court.

"We need to rely on witnesses," said Wicomico County State's Attorney Davis Ruark. In the absence of having a witness testify in such a case, he said, prosecutors would need Stanley's statement in writing or recorded on audio or video tape.

Maryland's Rules of Evidence say an oral or written statement is considered hearsay when it is made by an individual other than the person testifying at a trial or hearing is used as evidence to prove truth.

When a witness makes a statement before a trial that is not consistent with their testimony, two conditions have to be met before the statement can be used.

First, the witness has to testify at the trial and is subject to cross-examination. Second, the statement must meet one of the three conditions: It was given under oath or in a deposition; written and signed by the witness; or recorded verbatim by written transcript, audio or video.

Under the previous rule, if the witness' testimony and statement were inconsistent, the statement couldn't be used, regardless of whether it had been recorded.

Without cooperation from witnesses, the prosecution didn't have much. Moss' extensive criminal history would not come into play unless he took the witness stand, and prior offenses can't be used to prove current conviction, Ruark said.

"It requires evidence," Ruark said. "It requires people come forward and tell the truth. Without that, we cannot rely upon prior reports as a substitute for evidence. Without the cooperation of victims in these cases, we cannot make something magically appear no matter how much we want to do so."

Law enforcement gave prosecutors little, if any, evidence that could be used to convict Moss on the charges, said Andrew MacDonald, a former assistant state's attorney who handled the case.

"The only evidence the (Wicomico) sheriff's office provided my office with linking Duran Moss to this crime was an alleged statement made by the co-defendant, Timothy Hall, to one of the other victims, Starla Stanley, after the crime," said MacDonald, who is now a private criminal defense attorney.

The problem, McDonald said, is that Hall's statement is hearsay; his statement would not be admissible in court. Because Stanley could not testify that Moss told her he was involved in the robbery, her testimony would violate the rules of evidence.

A law enforcement officer said Stanley said Hall said Moss was with him that night.

"We're talking triple hearsay here," McDonald said. "It would have been completely irresponsible to take this case to trial under those circumstances. Not only was there no evidence, it was unjust."

Constitutional protections

It's not that uncommon for prosecutors to dismiss cases they are not sure they can win, said Gary LaFree, a criminology and criminal justice professor at the University of Maryland in College Park.

"The system is pretty cautious about taking on cases that could go to trial," he said. "Nobody wants to get an acquittal, so they tend to line their ducks up in a row."

The problem is that many key figures in the criminal justice system are elected, so there is public pressure to do something. And in this country, the legal system is set up to err on the side of avoiding a wrongful conviction to avoid sending innocent people to jail.

"Sometimes because of the procedural rules, guilty people get away with things," LaFree said. "But the flip side is that people have constitutional protections."

How officers document cases, the way evidence and witness statements are obtained, is critically important to the successful prosecution of a case, said Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis. "Without it, prosecutors are forced to nolle proseqi the case."

"It's not unusual to get it over the phone, but it should be followed up immediately with a written statement, " Lewis said.

It is common for a witness to recant a statement, Lewis said. Sometimes they do so out of fear of retaliation by the defendant. Sometimes a witness will give a oral statement but refuse to provide a written statement.

"They know once they provide a written statement it is memorialized forever," Lewis said. "They are reluctant to do this."

Although not necessarily in this particular instance, Lewis said, investigators sometimes don't take the time to solidify their cases. Some officers are overworked and are not given enough time to produce thorough detailed reports.

"It's getting a written statement, reviewing the written statement and getting the date and time," Lewis said.

There may not have been enough evidence to prosecute the case, but there must have been enough evidence to make an arrest, said Lewis, who was not sheriff at the time of the 2004 incident. The state District Court commissioner signed an application of charges, which is one of the means by which a law enforcement officer can obtain an arrest warrant.

But court commissioners are commonly used to take political heat, LaFree said. They are used to dump cases that are sensitive.

"Grand juries and commissioners are rubber stamps for the prosecution," LaFree said.

As Moss faces murder charges again, it remains to be seen if there will be a different outcome this time.

"We have an imperfect system," LaFree said. "It's a coarse net. There's some sense that if you keep passing through it, you will eventually get caught. And there's also some sense that some crimes go unpunished."

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