A prosecutor said Monday that while few people have been willing to discuss the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur, Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been the “one person who has a hard time being silent.” “Let’s be clear, Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting in retaliation of the beating of his nephew,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors during opening statements in Davis’ Las Vegas trial. He has pleaded not guilty.
In his opening statement, Davis’ attorney dismissed the prosecution’s account as “fiction.” If convicted, Davis could face life in prison. Palal showed jurors video of Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’ nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson outside the boxing match at the MGM Grand hours before the shooting on Sept. 7, 1996. Davis spent the next two hours planning how to get even, said Palal, and Shakur was gunned down “in an act of revenge.” In a 2008 interview with a federal task force investigating the killing of Shakur's rival, the Notorious B.I.G., Davis instead talked about the Shakur shooting.
He described handing a gun to the men in the back seat of a white Cadillac that fired on a black BMW with Shakur and Marion “Suge” Knight inside. As prosecutors played audio of Davis explaining the moment Shakur was shot, members of Shakur’s family, including his stepbrother Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur, stared ahead and listened intently from the audience. Palal told jurors Davis held onto a visceral hatred for Shakur for decades that drove him to speak.
He said as early as 1998, the defendant talked to the FBI and admitted he had been in Las Vegas the night of the shooting. He spoke again in 1999 to the FBI and said again he was in Las Vegas then but denied responsibility. In 2009, he admitted to his role in the killing in an interview with Las Vegas police, Palal said.
He also showed jurors the 2019 memoir that Davis co-authored, “Compton Street Legend,” that the prosecution will use and that the defense fought to keep out of the trial, along with several of the defendant's interviews. Davis, wearing a blue suit and tie, watched the presentation while sitting next to his attorney. He sat quietly with his hands folded on the table in front of him, occasionally nodding along as his attorney spoke.
The defense attorney also pointed to missing documents in the original investigation and distrust between Los Angeles and Las Vegas police departments. He pointed out that the Compton Police Department was shut down in September 2000 due to corruption. He called one detective’s work “biased,” “sloppy” and “incomplete.” He said retired Detective Clifford Mogg read portions of Davis’ book into the record as if it were fact, but said Mogg didn’t verify claims in it.
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