Former gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Tuesday for orchestrating the 1996 drive-by shooting that killed hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, nearly three decades after the rapper’s death became one of the most high-profile unsolved cases in US music history.
“You don't get to take a man from his family,” Judge Carli Kierny told Davis during sentencing. “You don't get to take his very life, his whole future from him, and just walk away from it, especially when that man is Tupac Shakur. The world never forgot about him and his death, and neither did Las Vegas. Took us 30 years, but at this time, you are going to face justice for what you did on September 7th, 1996.”
A 12-member jury found Davis guilty of first-degree murder in August after a multi-week trial in Las Vegas. He was also convicted of murder with the use of a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. Davis waived his right to a jury recommendation on sentencing, leaving Kierny to determine his punishment.
Shakur’s family attended the sentencing, where his younger sister delivered an emotional statement about the rapper’s hopes of changing perceptions of people from disadvantaged communities.
“He had a theory that ‘if I can get people to fall in love with me and respect me when I know I look and I move just like my brothers and sisters in the street, then maybe one day they'll see, stop seeing them as animals and villains and demons and they can see love for them as well,’” she said.
Maurice Shakur also spoke about the life the rapper was denied. “Pac didn't get a chance to have any kids,” he said in court. “Pac didn't see his nieces and nephews grow up, and Pac didn't have a trial. All Pac got was a death sentence.”
Shakur was 25 when he was shot on September 7, 1996, while riding in the passenger seat of a black BMW driven by music executive Marion “Suge” Knight. Police said a white Cadillac pulled alongside the vehicle at a red light on the Las Vegas Strip and opened fire. Shakur was struck multiple times, including in the chest, arm and thigh, while Knight was grazed in the head. Shakur died six days later. Knight survived.
Davis, who was arrested in 2023, was the only person charged in connection with the killing after the case remained unresolved for nearly 30 years.
Prosecutors argued that Davis orchestrated the attack and supplied the gun used in the shooting. They said it was retaliation for a fight involving his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, at a Las Vegas casino hours earlier. Investigators believed Anderson or another man in the back seat of the Cadillac may have fired the shots.
During the trial, prosecutors relied partly on Davis’ own accounts of the events, including statements he made in media interviews and a 2019 memoir. Prosecutor Binu Palal argued that Davis’ statements, alongside circumstantial evidence and corroborating witnesses, established his role in the killing.
“For nearly 18 years, Duane Davis has told the police, television, books, YouTube interviewers, anybody that will listen, he has told, he is responsible for the murder of Tupac Shakur,” Palal said during closing arguments.
Davis’ defence attorney, Michael Sanft, argued that prosecutors had failed to produce sufficient evidence linking his client to the crime scene and relied too heavily on his public statements, which he said were fabricated for financial gain. Sanft said on Tuesday that he planned to appeal the sentence.
(With agency inputs from ANI and Reuters)