Topline
Duane “Keffe D” Davis pleaded not guilty Thursday to a murder charge over the fatal shooting of late hip-hop star Tupac Shakur in 1996, multiple outlets reported, just over a month after the former Los Angeles gang member was charged in the high-profile case that remained unsolved for more than 25 years.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis pleaded not guilty to a murder charge stemming from the drive-by shooting of … [+]
Key Facts
Davis—a former leader of the Compton-based South Side Crips who had admitted to being in the car where a gun was shot—was indicted by a Las Vegas grand jury in September on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon with intent to promote or assist a criminal gang.
Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo described Davis at the time as the “commander” in the 1996 drive-by shooting that led to Shakur’s death, accusing Davis of having “ordered the death.”
Prosecutors told Clark County Judicial District Court Judge Tierra Jones they will not seek the death penalty in the case.
Surprising Fact
Under Nevada’s aiding and abetting statute, Davis can still be charged with murder even if he did not pull the trigger. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson told reporters in September that under the law, suspects can be deemed “equally as guilty” if they “help somebody commit a crime,” rather than commit the act itself. Davis admitted to being in the car in a 2018 Netflix documentary about the murders of Tupac and East Coast rival Notorious B.I.G. Unsolved: The Tupac and Biggie Murders, and again in a BET interview, saying his late nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson—a suspect in the decades-long case—was also in the car. Anderson died in 1998, two years after Shakur’s death.
Key Background
Shakur rose to stardom as a hip-hop icon in the early 1990s, receiving six Grammy Awards nominations and topping U.S. music charts with singles “California Love,” “Changes” and “Dear Mama.” He was shot from the back seat of a white Cadillac on the night of September 7, 1996, while riding in a BMW with Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight, following a Mike Tyson boxing match in Las Vegas. Shakur was hit four times in the shooting, and died one week later, at 25. His killing—as well as the drive-by killing of the Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) just six months after Shakur’s death—had gone unsolved for more than 26 years.
Further Reading
Duane Davis Charged With Murder Of Tupac Shakur Following Decades Of Investigations (Forbes)
Duane Davis Can Be Convicted Of Tupac Shakur’s Murder Even If He Wasn’t The Triggerman—What To Know About The ‘Hardened Gangster’ (Forbes)
Tupac Shakur Murder: Las Vegas Police Search Home Tied To Uncle Of Dead Suspect (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/11/02/tupac-shakur-killing-duane-davis-pleads-not-guilty-to-murder-charge/