A Las Vegas jury on Monday found a onetime Compton gang leader guilty in the slaying of rapper Tupac Shakur, marking a turning point in a murder mystery that captured the public\u2019s attention for decades.<\/p>\n
Jurors deliberated for just a few hours in the murder trial of Duane \u201cKeffe D\u201d Davis, who is accused of orchestrating the fatal shooting of Shakur off the Las Vegas Strip nearly 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors allege Davis, 63, arranged the rapper\u2019s killing by getting a .40-caliber handgun and passing it to fellow members of the Southside Crips-Burris Street gang as they rode in a Cadillac on Sept. 7, 1996. <\/p>\n
The motive, prosecutors told jurors, was revenge after Shakur, then-Death Row Records mogul Marion \u201cSuge\u201d Knight and members of the Mob Piru gang had beaten Davis\u2019 nephew Orlando Anderson at the MGM Grand hours earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuane Davis, in the culture of gangs, could not let that stand. He acquired a firearm, got his group together, and went hunting for Mr. Shakur or Mr. Knight,\u201d Clark County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Binu Palal told jurors.<\/p>\n
In closing their case, prosecutors told jurors they had not only heard Davis\u2019 own incriminating words in interviews, but also had been presented with a deluge of circumstantial evidence linking him to one of the most famous murders in modern history.<\/p>\n
But Anthony Sanft, Davis\u2019 defense lawyer, argued that the prosecution had no forensics, no eyewitness, and not a single shred of physical evidence placing Davis in the Cadillac with the shooter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe state wants you to believe this was a confession, that he was somehow there in person at the time of the shooting,\u201d Sanft told jurors. \u201cWe can\u2019t even put Davis in Las Vegas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanft claimed his client fabricated his story in a 2008 interview with Los Angeles police and federal authorities as part of their investigation into the 1997 slaying of Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, to avoid a life sentence for drug dealing. He later repeated parts of the fabricated stories to help sell his 2019 memoir, \u201cCompton Street Legend,\u201d Sanft argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re reading a book that is fiction and not fact,\u201d Sanft told jurors. <\/p>\n
Sanft showed the jury that, during a documentary interview in the area of the crime scene, Davis got the exact location of the shooting wrong.<\/p>\n
Palal, however, argued that Davis had to retaliate for his nephew\u2019s beating. The shooting occurred, he said, when the Cadillac that Davis was riding in passed Shakur and Knight\u2019s BMW.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey happen to run into Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight going the opposite way … and in that moment, a decision is made not to keep going, but to make a U-turn around, pass a gun and shoot into Tupac and Suge Knight\u2019s car,\u201d Palal said.<\/p>\n