The former street gang leader accused of orchestrating the 1996 drive-by killing of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas is expected to plead not guilty Thursday to the murder, amid questions about whether he will hire a defense attorney or have a judge appoint a public defender.
Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis, who is described as the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which shots were fired that night, killing Shakur, is due to be arraigned in a Nevada court despite losing his bid to hire local defense attorney Ross Goodman.
Goodman spoke on Davis’ behalf outside court two weeks ago and said prosecutors lack key evidence and witnesses to the murder committed 27 years ago. The attorney did not give a reason Wednesday why Davis could not hire him.
Davis, 60, is originally from Compton, Calif. He was arrested Sept. 29 outside a home in suburban Henderson, where Las Vegas police served a search warrant July 17, drawing renewed attention to the unsolved murder of one of hip-hop music’s most enduring icons.
His indictment alleges that Davis gave a gun to someone in the Cadillac from which shots were fired, fatally wounding Shakur and injuring rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight at an intersection just off the Las Vegas Strip.
Shakur died a week later at the age of 25.
Knight is now 58 and serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for the 2015 death of a Compton businessman.
Prosecutors allege Shakur’s killing in Las Vegas stemmed from a fierce rivalry between East Coast and West Coast groups for dominance in a music genre then called “gangsta rap,” and followed a brawl at a Las Vegas Strip casino involving Shakur and Davis’ nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.
Prosecutors told a grand jury that Davis implicated himself in the killing in multiple interviews and in a revealing 2019 memoir that described his life leading a Crips cult in Compton.