Duane Davis sentenced to 40 years to life in US for Tupac Shakur’s murder

Duane “Keffe D” Davis was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Tuesday for the 1996 murder of rap icon Tupac Shakur, according to media reports.

Judge Carli Kierny in Las Vegas handed down the sentence after a 12-person jury found Davis guilty of first-degree murder following a multi-week trial in August.

Shakur was shot multiple times on Sept. 7, 1996, while riding in a black BMW with music executive Marion “Suge” Knight. A white Cadillac pulled alongside the vehicle at a Las Vegas intersection and gunfire erupted. Shakur died six days later. Knight survived the shooting.

Prosecutors argued that Davis organized the shooting in retaliation for a fight involving his nephew, Orlando Anderson, at a Las Vegas casino earlier that night.

They relied in part on Davis’ accounts of the incident, including media interviews, podcasts and a 2019 memoir.

“The strength of our case was Mr. Davis,” Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said after the verdict, referring to Davis’ public statements about the shooting.

Davis’ defense argued that there was no evidence placing him in Las Vegas at the time of the shooting and that his accounts had been fabricated for financial gain.

Davis is the only person to have been charged in connection with Shakur’s killing. Anderson, whom prosecutors linked to the casino fight, was killed in a gang shooting in 1998.

Davis waived his right to a jury recommendation on sentencing. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

Davis said he planned to appeal the verdict.