A former Southern California street gang leader pleaded not guilty Thursday to the 1996 murder of rap music icon Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas, a charge prompted by his own descriptions in recent years of orchestrating the deadly shooting since A vehicle.
Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis, the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which shots were fired and the only person charged with a crime in the case.
In the courtroom gallery Thursday, Davis was handcuffed and waving at his wife, son and daughter as he awaited proceedings before Clark County District Court Judge Tierra Jones.
“Not guilty,” Davis said when the judge asked him to plead guilty.
The judge told Davis that prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty in the case, which could send Davis to prison for the rest of his life if convicted.
Jones also appointed county special public defenders Robert Arroyo and Charles Cano to represent Davis at taxpayer expense after Davis lost his bid to hire private defense attorney Ross Goodman.
Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis pleaded not guilty Thursday to the murder of Tupac Shakur, a charge prompted by his own descriptions of orchestrating the fatal drive-by shooting. AP
Goodman said two weeks ago that prosecutors lack key witnesses and evidence, including a gun or vehicle, for the murder committed 27 years ago.
Outside the courtroom Thursday, Goodman said Davis was still trying to hire him.
Davis’ relatives declined to comment.
Davis was the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which shots were fired and the only person charged with a crime in the case, according to reports. AP
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson told reporters that he and a panel of prosecutors decided the case against Davis “was not the type of case that should proceed with a request for the death penalty.”
He did not specify the reasons for that decision.
Wolfson also declined to respond to Goodman’s criticism of a lack of evidence, saying a jury would weigh the results of the police investigation.
In court, Davis wore a dark blue prison uniform and answered several questions, telling the judge that he attended “one year of college,” that he was not under the influence of drugs, medication or alcohol, and that he understood he was charged with murder. . .
The judge set his next court date for Tuesday to schedule the trial.
Davis, 60, is originally from Compton, California.
He was arrested Sept. 29 outside a home in suburban Henderson, where Las Vegas police served a search warrant on July 17, bringing renewed attention to one of hip-hop music’s most enduring mysteries.
Davis remains jailed without bail, did not testify before the grand jury that indicted him and declined to speak to The Associated Press from jail.
Tupac died at the age of 25 after someone shot at his car at an intersection on the Las Vegas Strip. REUTERS The judge told Davis that prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty in the case, which could send Davis to prison for the rest of his life, according to reports. AP
The indictment alleges that Davis obtained and provided a gun to someone in the back seat of a Cadillac before the car-to-car shootout that fatally wounded Shakur and rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight at an intersection just off the Strip. from Las Vegas.
Shakur died a week later. He was 25 years old.
Knight, now 58, is in prison in California, serving a 28-year sentence for the 2015 death of a Compton businessman.
He has not responded to messages from his attorneys seeking comment on Davis’ arrest.
Prosecutors allege that Shakur’s murder in Las Vegas stemmed from competition between members of an East Coast Bloods gang sect and West Coast Crips sect groups, including Davis, for dominance in a musical genre called “gangsta rap.”
The grand jury was told that the Sept. 7, 1996, shooting in Las Vegas was retaliation for a fight hours earlier at a Las Vegas Strip casino involving Shakur and Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson. .
Prosecutors told the grand jury that Davis implicated himself in the murder in multiple interviews and in a revealing 2019 memoir that described his life leading a Crips cult in Compton.
Davis has said he obtained a .40-caliber handgun and handed it to Anderson, a member of Davis’s gang, in the back seat of a Cadillac, although he did not identify Anderson as the shooter.
Anderson, then 22, denied involvement in Shakur’s murder and died two years later in a shooting in his hometown of Compton.
The other back seat passenger and the driver of the Cadillac are also dead.
In his book, Davis wrote that he told authorities in 2010 what he knew about the murders of Shakur and his rival gang Notorious B.I.G., whose legal name is Christopher Wallace, to protect himself and 48 of his Southside gang associates. Compton Crips of processing and possibility. of life sentences in prison.
Prosecutors told the grand jury that Davis implicated himself in the murder in multiple interviews and a revealing 2019 memoir, according to reports. AP Davis was arrested Sept. 29 outside a home in suburban Henderson, where Las Vegas police served a search warrant on July 17. AP
Wallace, also known as Biggie Smalls, was shot to death in Los Angeles in March 1997, six months after Shakur’s death.
Shakur is widely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time.
He had five No. 1 albums, was nominated for six Grammy Awards, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 and received a posthumous star this year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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