LAS VEGAS — A Nevada judge on Tuesday sentenced Duane “Keffe D” Davis to 40 years to life in prison for orchestrating the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, bringing a courtroom close to a case that went unsolved for nearly three decades.
Davis, 63, was convicted of first-degree murder by a Clark County jury in August. He is the only person ever charged in Shakur’s death. Zark News carried Tuesday’s sentencing hearing live from the Las Vegas courtroom.
Family addresses the court
Shakur’s sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, and his brother, Maurice Shakur, delivered victim impact statements before Judge Carli Kierny imposed the sentence. Sekyiwa told the court her brother was “born an icon” and that the family — and a generation of fans — had lost something huge.
Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo urged the judge to impose the maximum sentence, arguing that Davis had tried to profit from a killing he committed and deserved no leniency. Defense attorney Michael Sanft asked for a 40-year term and confirmed that Davis will appeal the conviction.
A case built on Davis’s own words
Prosecutors did not allege that Davis fired the shots that killed Shakur. They argued he ordered the retaliation shooting and supplied the gun after Shakur and his entourage beat up Davis’s nephew, Orlando Anderson, at the MGM Grand earlier that night.
Davis first described his role in a 2008 police interview, then laid out the plot again in a 2019 memoir — admissions that led directly to his arrest in 2023. His defense argued at trial that the accounts were fabricated, likening the memoir to historical fiction.
The 1996 killing
Shakur was shot in a drive-by attack near the Las Vegas Strip on September 7, 1996, after attending a Mike Tyson fight, and died days later at age 25. The killing became one of the most famous unsolved cases in American music history, fueling decades of speculation.
With Tuesday’s sentence, Davis — a former South Side Compton Crips leader — faces spending the rest of his life in prison, subject to his planned appeal.
