Duane “Keffe D” Davis is due to be sentenced in Las Vegas on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, after being convicted of orchestrating the 1996 murder of rap icon Tupac Shakur.
Davis, 63, was found guilty in August of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole and is expected to appeal.
Members of Shakur’s family, including his siblings Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur and Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, are expected to address the court at the sentencing hearing.
Tupac Shakur murder case
Shakur was shot on the night of 7 September 1996 as he travelled in a black BMW with Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight near the Las Vegas Strip.
A white Cadillac pulled alongside the car at a red light and gunfire erupted. Shakur was struck several times and died six days later, while Knight survived.
Prosecutors argued that Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips, organised the attack and supplied the weapon after Shakur and members of his entourage had assaulted Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, earlier that evening.
Davis was not accused of firing the fatal shots. Prosecutors relied heavily on statements he had made to police, documentary-makers and in his 2019 memoir, in which he described being in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and passing a gun to people in the back.
His defence maintained that there was no physical evidence linking him to the killing and portrayed him as an unreliable figure who had made claims to profit from his notoriety.
The jury reached its verdict after less than three hours of deliberations following nine days of testimony. Davis has remained in custody since his arrest in September 2023.
He is the only person to have been charged and convicted in Shakur’s killing. The three other men alleged to have been in the Cadillac, including Anderson, have since died.
Sean “Diddy” Combs was also mentioned repeatedly during the trial after Davis alleged that he had offered money for an attack on Shakur and Knight. Combs has repeatedly denied any involvement in Shakur’s death.
Clark County district attorney Steve Wolfson has said prosecutors do not currently believe there is enough evidence to charge anyone else, although he has left open the possibility of further charges if new evidence emerges.
