Tupac murder suspect loses bid to dismiss case, trial scheduled for March
LAS VEGAS - Duane "Keffe D" Davis, the only suspect ever to be charged in the 1990s killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas, failed in his efforts to get his murder case dismissed.
Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny said in a decision issued Tuesday that Davis had provided no proof of any immunity deals and that "the state of Nevada has never offered" him a deal.
What they're saying:
Davis and his lawyer had argued that he never should have been charged with murder because of immunity agreements he says he reached years ago with federal and local authorities.
Rapper Tupac Shakur poses for photos backstage after his performance at the Regal Theater in Chicago, Illinois in March 1994. (Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)
Attorney Carl Arnold said the indictment against his 61-year-old client is an "egregious" violation of his constitutional rights because of a 27-year delay in prosecution.
Arnold said after the hearing that they will decide in the coming days if they will appeal the judge’s decision to the state Supreme Court.
The other side:
Prosecutors said Davis has provided no proof that he was granted immunity by authorities who interviewed him in 1998 and in the early 2000s while he was still living in California.
Prosecutors have said the evidence against Davis is strong, including his own accounts of the 1996 shooting in his tell-all memoir. Davis, an ex-gang leader, is accused of orchestrating the shooting near the Las Vegas Strip that killed Shakur shortly after a brawl at a casino involving Shakur and Davis’ nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson.
What's next:
Davis’ trial in Las Vegas is currently scheduled for March 17. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
The backstory:
Davis is originally from Compton, California. He was arrested in September 2023 in his neighborhood near Las Vegas.
In interviews and his 2019 memoir that described his life as a leader of a Crips gang sect in Compton, Davis said he obtained a .40-caliber handgun and handed it to Anderson in the back seat of a car from which, he and authorities said, shots were fired at Shakur in another car.
Shakur died a week later. He was 25.
Anderson, who died in 1998 in a shooting in Compton, had denied involvement in Shakur’s killing. Two other men in the car with Anderson and Davis are also dead.
The Source: The Associated Press contributed to this report. The information in this story came from tatements and decisions from Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny, arguments made by Davis’ attorney Carl Arnold, and responses from prosecutors in the case. This story was reported from Los Angeles.