Jury Acquits 37-Year-Old Defendant of 2020 Laurens Street Fatal Shooting

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The day after his trial began, homicide defendant Tovarren Scott was found not guilty of all charges for the murder of Moses Rush Jr. in 2020.

Scott, 37, was found not guilty of two counts of first-degree murder as well as one count of conspiracy to first-degree murder, with Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Gregory Sampson presiding.

“We are not here to act as avengers,” defense attorney David Soloman told the jury during closing arguments on Jan. 11—the same day on which jurors reached their verdict. “We are here to look at the evidence in a logical way and not engage in conjecture and speculation, which the prosecutor is asking you to do in spades.”

Over the course of the trial and during her closing argument, the prosecutor argued that Scott and Rush had an argument one week before the shooting. On July 16, 2020, Rush’s friend had just dropped the victim off at his home on the 1600 block of Laurens Street, where he said he saw two men walk past his car and towards the victim’s house.

The prosecutor said Rush’s friend heard gunshots once the two men reached the stairs to the victim’s home.

Scott was identified as one of the shooters because he was wearing a cast on his left arm, which one of the two men is seen wearing in video surveillance footage. There was no one else on the block at that time, the prosecutor concluded.