The admitted South Side Crips gang leader charged with murder for his alleged role in the 1996 shooting death of hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur is asking a Nevada judge to dismiss his case ahead of a high-stakes trial set to begin in March.
In a new motion filed Monday and obtained by Rolling Stone, Duane “Keffe D” Davis argues prosecutors have failed to produce any corroborating evidence supporting what he calls his “coerced confession” in the case. Davis claims prosecutors also “substantially” violated his constitutional rights by failing to honor the immunity agreement he believed was in effect whenever he spoke with state and federal investigators starting in 2008.
Davis and his lawyer, Carl Arnold, further argue in the new motion that prosecutors’ 27-year delay in bringing charges has “irreparably harmed” Davis’ ability to have a fair trial. “Too many witnesses have died,” Arnold wrote in the filing. The lawyer cited the death of Davis’ nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, the suspected shooter in Shakur’s death. Arnold also cited the “incarceration and unavailability” of important potential witnesses, including Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight and Bad Boy Entertainment founder Sean “Diddy” Combs, as factors harming his client’s defense. A hearing on the motion is set for Jan. 21.
“The prosecution has failed to justify a decades-long delay that has irreversibly prejudiced my client,” Arnold said in a press statement. “Moreover, the failure to honor immunity agreements undermines the criminal justice system’s integrity and seriously questions this prosecution.”
The Clark County District Attorney did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment. Prosecutor Binu Palal previously told the court that Davis “confessed over and over again that he is responsible for the murder of Tupac Shakur.”
Davis, 61, has pleaded not guilty to a single count of first-degree murder and is being held without bail. He was arrested in September 2023 while living with his wife and son in a Las Vegas suburb. According to his indictment, Davis orchestrated Shakur’s murder and provided the .40-caliber Glock that also wounded Knight, who was driving Shakur down the famed Vegas strip. Authorities claim the murder was retaliation after Shakur got into a physical altercation with Orlando Anderson inside a casino after a Mike Tyson fight on Sept. 6, 1996, hours before the deadly shooting.
Editor’s picks
In a 2019 memoir, Davis wrote about his rise through the ranks of the South Side Crips and acknowledged the existence of a federal agreement that he signed as part of an interstate drug case in Los Angeles. In his dismissal motion filed Monday, Davis detailed some of what he told authorities to purportedly “obtain immunity from prosecution.” In a December 2008 interview with Los Angeles Police and the FBI, he stated that Combs solicited him to kill Knight and Shakur for $1 million amid a feud – an allegation Combs has denied. Davis claimed a man named Eric “Zip” Martin, an alleged “associate” of Combs, provided him with the gun that he passed to the back seat of a rented white Cadillac before Anderson allegedly used it to open fire. He said Anderson never paid him the $1 million, according to the filing.
Prosecutors have taken the position that while Davis may have discussed or signed a proffer agreement granting him immunity for some of his statements, his subsequent media interviews and tell-all memoir are clearly fair game. Arnold, meanwhile, has said his client made the subsequent statements as “entertainment,” to make money. He called them unreliable for the purposes of a criminal case. “He himself is giving different stories,” Arnold told the Associated Press after a hearing last April. The lawyer said prosecutors lack proof Davis was even in Las Vegas at the time of Shakur’s shooting.
Related Content
For his part, Orlando Anderson denied any involvement in Shakur’s shooting. He was shot to death in Compton, California, in 1998 at age 23. The other two men who allegedly were in the white Cadillac with Anderson and Davis also are dead. Las Vegas Police never recovered the purported murder weapon.
“The state has no independent evidence that Orlando Anderson or any other members of the South Side Crips shot Tupac Shakur. This evidence comes solely from Mr. Davis’ statements,” Arnold wrote in his pending motion to dismiss. “The state has no evidence that a gun from Zip Martin was given to Mr. Davis and used in the shooting. The state has no evidence that the driver and passengers in the white Cadillac were members of the South Side Crips. All of these are necessary to establish the [facts and circumstances] of the state’s indictment that Mr. Davis orchestrated the shooting of Tupac Shakur.”
Without corroboration, Arnold wrote, “the indictment must be dismissed.”
