The long-awaited trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the man accused of ordering the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur, began Monday in a Las Vegas courtroom nearly three decades after the fatal shooting.
Prosecutors told jurors they intend to prove that Davis, a former Los Angeles gang leader, organised the attack in retaliation for an assault on his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, hours earlier.
“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 said during his opening statement. “Remarkably, you will learn that from Duane Davis himself.”
Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He faces life in prison if convicted.
Defence lawyers rejected the prosecution’s account, describing it as “fiction” and disputing claims that Davis was responsible for arranging Shakur’s death.
During the opening proceedings, Palal showed jurors footage of Shakur’s entourage attacking Anderson outside a boxing match at the MGM Grand on September 7, 1996.
The confrontation occurred only hours before Shakur was shot while riding in a black BMW driven by Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight.
“You will learn, when the opportunity presented itself for retribution, Duane Davis made sure that the shooters were armed and ready,” Palal said.
Jurors also heard testimony from Ingrid Stokes, who lived in Los Angeles at the time but had travelled to Las Vegas for the weekend. She said she was riding in a vehicle behind Shakur’s BMW when the shooting happened.
“We ran into Suge and Tupac in the car,” Stokes told the court.
Asked whether anyone had fired at her vehicle, she replied: “Probably, I honestly don’t know. There was a lot of gunshots.”
Davis, wearing a blue suit and tie, listened closely as prosecutors portrayed the shooting as an “act of revenge.” He later appeared visibly distressed, placing his face in his hands and shaking his head as the first day of proceedings drew to a close.
Much of the prosecution’s case is expected to centre on statements Davis made during interviews and public appearances over several years, as well as material contained in “Compton Street Legend,” a tell-all book he published and promoted.
Davis now denies writing the book and claims it was created as a money-making scheme.
During an exclusive jailhouse interview with ABC News in 2025, Davis also rejected the allegations against him.
“I’m innocent. I ain’t kill nobody. Never did ever kill nobody,” he said.
Prosecutors used the opening day to outline the gang rivalries and street codes that shaped Compton during the 1990s, arguing that Davis’s own previous statements placed him at the centre of the attack.
During a 2008 interview with a federal task force investigating the killing of Shakur’s rival, the Notorious B.I.G., Davis discussed the night Shakur was shot. He described passing a gun to men seated in the back of a white Cadillac before shots were fired into the BMW carrying Shakur and Knight.
Members of Shakur’s family, including his stepbrother Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur, sat silently in the courtroom as prosecutors played audio recordings of Davis recounting the shooting.
Palal said Davis had harboured an intense hatred toward Shakur for decades and repeatedly spoke about the case.
According to prosecutors, Davis told the FBI in 1998 that he had been in Las Vegas on the night of the attack. He repeated that admission during another interview in 1999 but denied responsibility for the killing.
In 2009, Davis acknowledged his role in the shooting during an interview with Las Vegas police, Palal told the jury.
“And now 30 years later, we’re going to ask you to finally hold Duane Davis accountable,” Palal said.
Prosecutors maintain that Davis did not fire the fatal shots but acted as the “shot caller” who organised the attack and travelled in the vehicle carrying the gunman. Davis has previously acknowledged being a longtime leader of the Southside Crips in Compton.
The prosecution’s potential witness list includes investigators who worked on the original case and members of Davis’s group who were allegedly with him in Las Vegas that night.
Knight, who was wounded while sitting beside Shakur and is currently imprisoned in an unrelated case, has said Davis may find it difficult to persuade jurors that his earlier statements were false.
“Everything he said and talked about, he already told on himself,” Knight said.
However, Knight has made clear that he does not intend to cooperate with law enforcement or testify against Davis.
“To actually get on the stand, and point somebody out, it’s worse than taking a gun and shooting that man in the head. Because if you shoot a person in the head, they die once. If you get on the stand and you snitch on that person, they die a million times,” Knight told ABC News from prison earlier this month. “Leave me out of it.”
Legal analyst Joshua Ritter said Knight’s testimony could be highly significant because he was driving the BMW and was seated directly beside Shakur during the attack.
“I mean, he’s probably the primary percipient witness to the entire murder. He was the driver. He’s sitting right next to Tupac as he gets shot. He gets shot himself. These are important parts,” Ritter said.
Davis’s lawyers, meanwhile, are expected to call an expert specialising in false confessions. Court filings indicate the expert will discuss coercive interrogation methods and the declining reliability of memories over long periods.
The circumstances surrounding Shakur’s murder remained unresolved for decades amid limited physical evidence, disagreements among investigators and a gangland code of silence that discouraged potential witnesses from cooperating.
Shakur died at University Medical Center in Las Vegas on September 13, 1996, six days after the shooting. He was 25 years old.
The trial is expected to last approximately one month, meaning a verdict could arrive around the 30th anniversary of the rapper’s death.
“This wasn’t your typical unsolved cold case where they didn’t have a suspect. I think they clearly had suspects for some time, and now they’ve finally been able to put together the witnesses willing to come forward,” Ritter said.
