Jury selection began on Monday for the murder trial of Duane 'Keffe D' Davis in the Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nevada. Davis, a 63-year-old former leader of the South Side Compton Crips gang, is accused of orchestrating the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur.
The prosecution charges Davis with murder involving a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. Prosecutors do not allege that Davis fired the shots, but that he organized the attack and provided the weapon.
On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting while traveling in a black BMW at the intersection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane. Shakur was traveling with music mogul Marion 'Suge' Knight when a white Cadillac pulled up alongside their vehicle.
Shakur died in a hospital six days later, on September 13, 1996, at the age of 25.
Defense and prior statements
Davis has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyers stated there is no evidence that he ordered the murder. In a March 2025 jailhouse interview with ABC News, Davis stated his prior confessions were lies and that he is innocent. He has claimed his confessions were made for profit and because he believed he had immunity from a 2008 interview with a joint LA-federal task force.
It was about following the rules of the street.
In his 2019 memoir, 'Compton Street Legends', Davis wrote that he obtained the gun used in the shooting and was present in the white Cadillac. He also identified three other individuals who were in the vehicle during the shooting, all of whom are now deceased.
Witnesses and testimony
Number of witnesses prosecutors expect to call during the trial.
Prosecutors expect to call between 35 and 45 witnesses, including former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, members of Shakur’s family, former police officers, and gang experts. One expected witness is Leonard Jefferson, a California resident who took the last known photograph of Shakur moments before the shooting.
Defense attorney Michael Sanft expects to call fewer than a handful of witnesses, including an expert on false confessions and coercive interrogation techniques.
Context of the investigation
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department believed the crime was a conflict between the South Side Compton Crips and the Mob Piru Bloods. Denvonta Lee, a former associate of the South Side Crips, testified in grand jury proceedings that rival gangs, the Crips and Mob Piru, were tied to the record labels Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records.
The shooting followed a physical altercation earlier that night in the lobby of the MGM Grand hotel involving Shakur, Knight, and Orlando Anderson. The conflict between Shakur and Anderson stemmed from allegations that Anderson had tried to steal a Death Row Records pendant months earlier.
Orlando 'Baby Lane' Anderson, the nephew of Davis, died in a 1998 gang shootout in Compton, California. Anderson is widely believed to have been the person who fired the shots that killed Shakur.
Marion 'Suge' Knight, the co-founder of Death Row Records and the only living eyewitness to the shooting, is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for a 2015 killing. Knight has publicly refused to testify in the trial.
Trial proceedings
The trial, presided over by Judge Carli Kierny, is expected to last approximately one month. If convicted, Davis faces a potential sentence of life in prison without parole.
Public seating for the trial is limited, and a daily lottery is held for in-person attendance, while a live feed is shown in a second-floor courtroom.
