Duane “Keffe D” Davis enters a courtroom in Clark County District Courtroom for a trial readiness standing verify on the Regional Justice Middle on June 17, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Davis was indicted on homicide prices for his involvement within the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996.
Steve Marcus-Pool/Getty Pictures
The person charged with the 1996 shooting death of Tupac Shakur appealed to the Nevada Supreme Courtroom to dismiss the homicide prices in opposition to him. He filed the enchantment on Tuesday after a decrease court docket choose upheld the costs in January.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis is charged with first-degree homicide for his alleged position in Shakur’s taking pictures dying. He has pleaded not responsible and has been held with out bail since his arrest in September 2023. In an interview in March, he told ABC News, “I’m harmless. I ain’t killed no one, by no means did ever kill no one.” Although Davis has denied the costs in opposition to him, he additionally appeared to implicate himself in his memoir, Compton Avenue Legend, the place he described the circumstances and his position in Shakur’s killing intimately.
His lawyer Carl Arnold claimed Davis’ constitutional rights have been violated. “Mr. Davis spoke to regulation enforcement years in the past beneath clear agreements that what he mentioned couldn’t be used in opposition to him. Now, those self same statements are getting used because the core of the State’s case,” Arnold mentioned in a press release supplied to Rolling Stone. “That’s not simply unfair—it’s unconstitutional. We’re asking the Supreme Courtroom to intervene earlier than this heads to trial, as a result of nobody ought to face prosecution based mostly on immunized statements—particularly not practically 30 years after the very fact.”
In his first movement to dismiss submitting in January, Arnold alleged Davis’ rights have been violated as a result of prosecution delay of 27 years, and that Davis was granted immunity agreements. The district court docket choose denied the enchantment, saying he had not supplied proof for the immunity offers and that the time it took for prosecution was unintentional.
Per the submitting obtained by Rolling Stone, Davis was interviewed a number of occasions, in 1998 and 1999 by federal prosecutors and once more in 2008 and 2009, allegedly beneath an immunity settlement that his statements wouldn’t be used in opposition to him for prosecution, per the submitting. In 1998 and 1999, he denied data of people concerned in Shakur’s killing. In 2008 and 2009, Davis then famous his “alleged involvement within the homicide and recognized the alleged shooter,” per the enchantment. Arnold argued that as a result of prosecutors didn’t current proof connecting Davis to Shakur’s killing outdoors of his personal statements, it was not sufficient for a trial.
Prosecutors have claimed that Davis orchestrated Shakur’s homicide and supplied the gun used within the taking pictures. Authorities have alleged that the homicide was retaliation for a bodily altercation between Shakur and Davis’ nephew, Orlando Anderson, after a Mike Tyson battle that occurred hours earlier than Shakur was shot.
Davis’ trial was pushed to 2026 after his attorneys filed a motion, citing the necessity for brand spanking new witnesses and extra investigation, which was granted. His trial is now set to start in February 2026.
This text was up to date to incorporate a press release from lawyer Carl Arnold.
From Rolling Stone US.