Tupac Shakur murder trial begins: What to know ahead of opening statements
Duane “Keffe D” Davis is accused of orchestrating Shakur’s killing in 1996.
“Gone but not forgotten.” That’s what one faded handwritten note says, just feet from the Las Vegas intersection where Tupac Shakur was gunned down. It’s one note among hundreds of graffiti tributes to the hip-hop icon, tattooed on a metal pole by the roadside.
It was 30 years ago, almost to the day. Sept. 7, 1996. Twenty-five at the time, Shakur was at that moment in his youth, in his heyday, at the height of a career that helped define the generation of rap he reigned over.
For more than 25 years, Shakur was, in fact, not forgotten. Still, the investigation into his murder had seemed to grow so cold that even many close to the events of that night believed the case would never be solved, much less prosecuted.
On Monday, only miles away from the scene of the crime, opening arguments will be heard in the trial of the only person ever charged in connection with Shakur’s death. It gavels in a remarkable moment in the modern annals of American culture and law enforcement -- taking place in a deeply unremarkable courtroom on which all eyes will turn in the coming months.
“The whole world” has heard of Shakur, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo acknowledged during jury selection. “We need jurors who can leave outside the courtroom any prior knowledge that they have, and judge the evidence fairly.”
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a onetime Los Angeles gang leader who retired to the Vegas suburbs, was arrested in Sept. 2023 and charged with murder with the use of a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He has been in custody ever since.
Opening statements are set to begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Clark County courthouse, a towering structure that sits between the two Las Vegas casino districts and a world away from the peak of the music industry Shakur once occupied.
Davis has pleaded not guilty.
In the years since Shakur’s murder, what exactly happened in that hail of bullets -- and who pulled the trigger -- was obscured by a lack of physical evidence, feuding cops and the gangland code of silence. The only eyewitness still living, rap impresario Marion “Suge” Knight, driving the car Shakur was in when he was shot that night, told ABC News he is no more willing to cooperate with law enforcement during Davis’ trial than he has been for the last 30 years.
"I don't get paid to solve homicides,” Knight told ABC News in the months after Shakur succumbed to his injuries. Now locked up in a state penitentiary near San Diego on unrelated charges, Knight hasn't changed his tune.
"To actually get on the stand, and point somebody out, it's worse than taking a gun and shooting that man in the head. Because if you shoot a person in the head, they die once. If you get on the stand and you snitch on that person, they die a million times," Knight told ABC News from prison earlier this month, ahead of Davis’s trial. "Leave me out of it."
One man who has spoken about the shooting? Davis himself.
In a documentary, police interviews and even his own memoir, Davis himself has repeatedly admitted to his alleged role in Shakur's death. In fact, investigators in Sin City credit Davis’ many public statements for reinvigorating the case – statements they then tried to corroborate.
“He kept talking until they put handcuffs on him,” Knight said of Davis. "Everything he said and talked about, he already told on himself. So what are you going to do? Erase all the recordings of the interviews he did?"
Davis now insists his confessions were all lies.
In a March 2025 jailhouse interview with ABC News, Davis said he is "innocent," and that he wasn’t even in Las Vegas the night of the killing. Judge Carli Kierny, presiding over the case, has ruled the jury will be able to hear about the book Davis published and his previous police interviews. So, even if he doesn’t take the stand in his own defense, Davis’ words could become the prosecution’s star witness.
Prosecutors say that, though Davis did not fire the gun that killed Shakur, the admitted longtime leader of the Southside Crips from the Los Angeles community of Compton was the "shot caller" and riding with the assailant. Davis is accused of orchestrating the murder by allegedly giving his crew the order to open fire on Shakur and Knight in retaliation for a fight earlier that night.
Prosecutors have a lengthy list of potential witnesses -- including original investigators on the case, and members of Davis’ crew who prosecutors alleged were with him in Vegas that night.
Lawyers for Davis plan to call, among others, an expert witness who specializes in false confessions. According to information provided to the court, that witness is expected to testify about coercive interrogation techniques and how memory becomes less reliable over time.
If convicted, the now-63-year-old Davis faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison. With proceedings expected to last roughly a month, the verdict could conceivably come right on the anniversary of Shakur’s death.
Shakur died at the University Medical Center in Las Vegas on Sept. 13, 1996. He succumbed six days after he and Knight were shot. Knight sustained head injuries in the gunfire.
In Las Vegas for the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight at the MGM Grand, Shakur and Knight were among the entertainment-industry celebrities who descended on Sin City for the bout. Also in Vegas was Davis and a group that included his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.
Within the music industry, Knight's Death Row Records and Sean Combs' Bad Boy Records vied for market share, publicity, and supremacy in the hip-hop world. Bad Boy Records, based in New York, boasted the top talent of the Notorious B.I.G. -- aka Biggie Smalls -- and, authorities allege, often hired members of the Crips street gang for security. The West was the domain of Knight and Death Row Records, which, police claim, had long-standing connections with the Crips' rivals, the Bloods. If Death Row was tops in LA, Tupac Shakur stood atop Death Row.
The record labels’ personas and allies clashed in what came to be known as the battle between the East and West Coast rap worlds. The enmity between Knight and Combs was fueled by insults -- perceived, real and even put to lyrics -- and, as “gangsta rap” swept the nation and hip-hop went mainstream, people connected with Death Row and Bad Boy feuded on stage and allegedly in the streets.
Davis has previously alleged that, amid mushrooming violence between the two groups, Combs had offered Davis a bounty on the lives of his rivals, Knight and Shakur. Combs has repeatedly denied any involvement in Shakur’s killing and has never been named by investigators as a suspect or even a person of interest in the case.
“You may hear Mr. Combs' name mentioned pretty prominently” during the trial, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo told one prospective juror during jury selection, but said they wouldn't be "asked to judge anything" about Combs, now serving a 50-month sentence on unrelated sex-trafficking charges.
Shakur’s killing came amid tensions already boiling over between Death Row and Bad Boy. In L.A. a couple of months earlier, a scuffle between Bloods and Crips broke out over a coveted Death Row medallion. Anderson, Davis’ nephew and a reputed Crip, was involved, according to police. It was an act of "war" that would warrant "retaliation," a Crip associate testified before Davis' indicting grand jury.
So, when the boxing action in the MGM ring ended that night in September 1996, another fight broke out in the casino lobby: Shakur and Knight spotted Anderson and confronted him in a beatdown that was caught on hotel security cameras.
Jumping his nephew “gave us the ultimate green light to do something to their asses,” was how Davis captured the moment in his 2019 memoir, "Compton Street Legend.” Davis said he and his companions went searching for Shakur, planning to get their revenge. Authorities said Davis and his crew waited at the Las Vegas nightclub run at the time by Knight, but he and Shakur didn't show. Soon after they left, the car in which Davis was allegedly riding wound up alongside the BMW Knight was driving, according to Davis' past accounts and prosecutors.
Shakur was hanging out of the car's sunroof. Screaming fans were trailing them.
At a stoplight at the intersection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, Shakur and Knight were shot. Knight was injured. Shakur, in grave condition, was rushed to the hospital. He died six days later.
A jury of six men and 10 women will now hear the evidence in Davis’ case. The panel includes a self-help guru who said he’d served on a jury before; a motorcycle-riding retired gemologist who said she hadn’t even heard the name Tupac Shakur before being called for this case; a mailman and a casino worker. Several of the jurors were either toddlers when the killing occurred, or hadn't yet been born.
Davis has waived his right to be sentenced by the jury, so the judge will determine the penalty if Davis is convicted.
Judge Kierny, for her part, has experience on both sides of the bench. Before ascending the bench in Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court in 2021, she worked a decade with the Clark County Public Defender’s office, the agency that provides defense lawyers to people accused of crimes in Las Vegas, according to her official bio.
That “dedication to public service” was also what made her want to be a judge, she said in an interview as a judicial candidate.
“You have to be able to put yourself in another person's shoes. We can't have sympathy, we can't be taking one side or the other, but empathy is super important.”
Kierny is now one of four judges who handle homicide cases in Las Vegas and Clark County that encompasses the city. She’s up for reelection this November.
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