Murder charge upheld for only person facing prosecution over Tupac Shakur death

The only person to be charged over the 1990s’ killing of rap star Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas has lost a bid to have his murder case dismissed.

Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny said on Tuesday that Duane “Keffe D” Davis had provided no proof of any immunity deals and that “the state of Nevada has never offered” him a deal.

Davis, 61, and his lawyer had said that he never should have been charged with murder, because of immunity agreements he says he reached years ago with federal and local authorities.

Lawyer Carl Arnold said the indictment against his client is an “egregious” violation of his constitutional rights because of a 27-year delay in prosecution.

Prosecutors said Davis has provided no proof that he was granted immunity by authorities who interviewed him in 1998 and in the early 2000s, while he was still living in California.

Davis’ trial in Las Vegas is scheduled for March 17. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

Prosecutors have said the evidence against Davis is strong, including his own accounts of the 1996 shooting in his tell-all memoir.

Davis, an ex-gang leader, is accused of orchestrating the shooting near the Las Vegas Strip that killed Shakur, shortly after a brawl at a casino involving Shakur and Davis’ nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.

Davis is originally from Compton, California. He was arrested in September 2023 in his neighbourhood near Las Vegas.

In interviews and his 2019 memoir that described his life as a leader of a Crips gang sect in Compton, Davis said he obtained a .40-calibre handgun and handed it to Anderson in the back seat of a car, from which, he and authorities said, shots were fired at Shakur in another car.

Shakur died a week later. He was 25.

Anderson, who died in 1998 in a shooting in Compton, had denied involvement in Shakur’s killing.

Two other men in the car with Anderson and Davis are also dead.