A Tucson man recently convicted of killing another man during a gunfight outside a gas station on East Benson Highway in 2019 has been ordered to appear in Pima County Superior Court next month to be sentenced.
Tito Rene Scott was found guilty by a jury on May 3 of second-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and discharging a firearm at an occupied structure. He was found not guilty of a first-degree murder charge.
The charges against Scott, 36, stemmed from an Aug. 23, 2019 shooting outside a Quik Mart in which Anthony Corral was shot twice. Corral, 35, died a few days later at a Tucson hospital. Investigators recovered multiple spent rounds from the scene where witnesses reported seeing both men shooting at each other.
Scott will be sentenced by Judge James Marner who has some discretion in imposing concurrent or consecutive prison terms for the three felonies.
Public records show Scott has been in the Pima County jail in lieu of $1 million bail since his indictment and arrest in December 2019. He was originally set to stand trial in September 2020, but COVID-19 restrictions pushed the date to November. The November trial date was also vacated, pushing the start of the trial to late April.
Scott is represented by defense attorney Dawn Priestman. In January of this year, Priestman argued on behalf of her client in support of holding the trial sooner than April given the lengthy case delays caused by the pandemic. A judge denied the request, finding that “extraordinary circumstances do exist and delay is indispensable to the interests of justice.”
Whatever sentence Marner imposes will include credit for all the time Scott has been in jail.