Duane Davis received 40 years to life for orchestrating Tupac Shakur’s 1996 killing. He is expected to appeal.
LAS VEGAS – A judge sentenced Duane “Keffe D” Davis on Tuesday to 40 years to life in prison for orchestrating the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. Clark County District Judge Carli Kierny imposed 20 years to life for first-degree murder and a consecutive 20-year-to-life enhancement, and gave Davis credit for 731 days already served. Davis is 63.
A jury convicted Davis on Aug. 31 of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon after less than three hours of deliberation. He is the only person ever charged in Shakur’s death. Shakur, 25, was shot in a drive-by attack near the Las Vegas Strip in September 1996 and died days later. Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips gang, is expected to appeal.
Much of the two-week trial turned on Davis’s own accounts of the shooting in media interviews and in a 2019 memoir. Prosecutors said the killing followed a scuffle between Davis’s nephew and Shakur on the night he was shot. Davis had spoken to detectives years earlier but avoided prosecution under an agreement with law enforcement.
At the hearing, Davis spoke briefly and asked for belongings that police took from his home, such as photographs, to be returned. Shakur’s sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, spoke about her brother’s role as a protector and father figure, and his stepbrother asked the judge for the longest possible sentence. Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo argued Davis tried to profit from the killing and deserved the maximum penalty.
This report draws on information from CBS News, CNN, NBC News, Fox 5 Las Vegas and KLAS.