Lawyers: No red flags in suspect's criminal history

In many ways, it's a familiar criminal progression.

Dontae Rashawn Morris graduated from juvenile offenses to chronic traffic infractions; from misdemeanors to felonies. He went from drug arrests to charges of attempted murder and armed robbery.

Now the 24-year-old Morris is wanted on two counts of first-degree murder, accused of fatally shooting two Tampa police officers during a traffic stop early Tuesday.

As of Thursday morning, he is still eluding a massive dragnet.

Given Morris' 18 arrests over the years some now are wondering why he wasn't already behind bars.

Until April 4, he was - serving time on cocaine charges.

"There is nothing that makes him appear to be someone who slipped through the cracks," said Mike Benito, a Tampa defense lawyer and former prosecutor. "It is not like he was convicted of a 30-year offense and got five years.

"There is not one case when you look at his record that says this guy shouldn't be on the street," Benito said.

Hillsborough County prosecutors declined to discuss Morris.

But Tampa defense attorney Lyann Goudie said "the system worked the way the system was supposed to."

"We have a lot of crimes going on in our community and they are ranked by severity," said Goudie, also a former prosecutor.

"He hadn't been convicted of life felonies; not something you would put someone in jail for forever," she said.

Until this week, the closest Morris had come to serious prison time was in March 2005 when he was charged with attempted murder and armed robbery. He faced a possible life sentence.

The victim told authorities he was walking home when he heard someone tell him to fork over his cash. He was shot as he kept walking.

A neighbor gave a description of the getaway car and a vehicle matching it was stopped in the area a couple of hours later. Police found a sawed-off shotgun under the passenger's seat and spent casings on the floorboard.

The driver pegged Morris as the shooter. Morris told police he had just got in the car.

The case hinged on the driver's testimony, which prosecutors couldn't corroborate through witnesses or forensic evidence.

A jury deliberated for 2 1/2 hours being acquitting Morris on all counts.

"The state did the best with the evidence it had," Benito said. "It wasn't enough."

In February 2004, Morris was charged with carjacking after a police officer saw him getting out of a Ford SUV that had been reported stolen three days before.

When ordered to stop, Morris ran before being detained five blocks away. According to court records, Morris told police he bought the car from a Puerto Rican for $200 worth of crack cocaine.

Prosecutors later dropped the carjacking charge and reduced the case to a misdemeanor. Morris pleaded guilty to resisting an officer without violence and driving with a suspended license. He was sentenced to time served.

In 2006, Morris was charged with tampering with a witness while in jail awaiting trial on the attempted murder charge. Deputies claimed he made threatening telephone calls on behalf of another inmate.

The charges were dropped.

In March 2008, Morris was sentenced to 27 months in state prison on drug charges.

He pleaded guilty to possessing a rock of cocaine when he was arrested for trespassing at a public housing complex, records show. He was on probation at the time for having 50 grams of rock cocaine when he was pulled over for driving with a suspended license.

Morris was released in April.

In Tuesday's fatal traffic stop, police said Officers Dave Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab were trying to arrest Morris on a worthless check warrant out of Jacksonville.

The warrant was issued while Morris was in prison on the Tampa drug charges.

Florida Department of Corrections officials said Duval County authorities didn't want to extradite Morris or issue a detainer that would have kept him behind bars until he answered the warrant.

In a statement Wednesday, Duval Sheriff John H. Rutherford said his office has three worthless check warrants on file for Morris. Two are misdemeanors and call for extradition only within Clay, St. Johns, Baker and Nassau counties. The third is a felony warrant indicating statewide extradition.

Rutherford said his office is reviewing its October 2009 communication with DOC regarding Morris' release from prison.

"We are working to determine if our Records and Identification clerk missed the third worthless check warrant, which indicates a statewide extradition order," he said.