Thirty Years After Tupac Was Killed, a Las Vegas Jury Has the Only Man Ever Charged

Caption: Illustration of Tupac Shakur. Credit: Gringolivier, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Tupac Shakur was shot on a Las Vegas street on September 7, 1996. Thirty years later a jury in that same city is deciding whether Duane Davis is responsible, and he is the only person who has ever been charged.

The Theory Prosecutors Put to the Jury

Davis, 63, faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon with intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He was arrested in 2023 and has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors are not arguing that Davis fired the shots. According to the case they put to the jury, they set out to prove that Davis made the calls that led to Shakur’s death and provided the gun used to shoot him. The trial is before Judge Carli Kierny in Clark County District Court.

What He Put in His Own Memoir

The prosecution’s most cited evidence is Davis himself. In his memoir Compton Street Legends, Davis describes obtaining a handgun from an associate and tossing it into the back seat of a Cadillac. He does not identify who fired the shots.

That passage is why the defense case took the shape it did.

A Defense Built on Fewer Than Five Witnesses

Davis’s attorney planned to call fewer than five witnesses, among them an expert on false confessions and coercive interrogation techniques. The argument is that Davis’s book and his interviews were entertainment rather than admission.

A jury was seated on August 13. Testimony ran from August 17 to August 26, and the case went to closing arguments on August 27.

The Two Names That Did Not Take the Stand

Davis’s book alleges that Sean Combs wanted Marion Knight and Shakur dead and offered money for their murders. Combs has denied involvement, and his name does not appear on witness lists.

Knight, the only other living eyewitness, is serving 28 years in California and has said he would not testify.

Davis is the only person ever charged in the killing. If the jury acquits him, there is no other defendant waiting behind him, and a case that has stayed open for three decades closes without an answer.

References: Trial begins for man accused of orchestrating Tupac Shakur’s killing | Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis’ Murder Trial Heads to Closings in Tupac Shakur’s 1996 Killing