One of the most notorious unresolved murder cases was revived in a Las Vegas courtroom on Monday, as a fringe figure in the world of 1990s hip-hop stood trial on a charge that he orchestrated the murder of the rapper Tupac Shakur.
In opening statements, Nevada prosecutors said they would convince a jury that delivering justice in the case meant convicting Duane Keith Davis, a former gang member from Compton, Calif., who is accused of acquiring a .40-caliber Glock and pursuing Mr. Shakur in a white Cadillac full of his associates on Sept. 7, 1996. Davis has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder with the use of a deadly weapon.
In a trial that is expected to last about a month, prosecutors will seek to prove that although Mr. Davis, 63, did not pull the trigger that night, he was a critical player in the drive-by shooting that killed Mr. Shakur.
The defense previewed a plan to try to cast skepticism on the police’s investigation, arguing that the authorities appear to be no closer to securing justice for Mr. Shakur than they were 30 years ago.
1. The prosecution tried to establish a motive of “revenge” and “retribution.”
In an opening statement, Binu Palal, one of the prosecutors, walked jurors through the internecine gang feud that preceded the shooting, describing Mr. Davis, known as Keffe D, as a leader of a set of Crips, based in Compton, that was at odds with a local group of Bloods. Both gangs became entangled in the bicoastal hip-hop rivalry involving Mr. Shakur and his record label boss, Marion Knight, known as Suge.
Members of both gangs ended up in Las Vegas in September 1996 for a Mike Tyson prizefight, which became the scene of what the prosecutor described as a pivotal altercation. After the fight was over, Mr. Shakur and Mr. Knight encountered Orlando Anderson, a nephew of Mr. Davis, in the MGM Grand. Jurors saw hotel security footage of Mr. Shakur and his entourage punching and kicking Mr. Anderson.
“In his world,” Mr. Palal said of Mr. Davis, “there is no question that a response is required.”
Mr. Palal said that Mr. Davis maintained a “visceral anger” toward Mr. Shakur in the years since the shooting, rage that he expressed repeatedly in interviews and in a memoir.
2. The prosecution’s case relies significantly on Mr. Davis’s own statements.
The prosecution argued that when an opportunity presented itself for Mr. Davis to exact revenge for the beating of his nephew, he took it.
“Remarkably,” Mr. Palal told the jury, “you will learn that from Duane Davis himself.”
As Mr. Shakur and Mr. Knight drove in a black BMW to their label’s nightclub, a car containing Mr. Davis and three other Crips pulled up alongside their vehicle, and someone in the back seat opened fire, according to Mr. Davis’s own account of the night, given in interviews and a memoir. Mr. Knight was grazed with a bullet, while Mr. Shakur was hit four times, dying at the hospital days later.
Mr. Palal shared what amounted to a highlight reel of media appearances over the past decade in which Mr. Davis described his role in the shooting. Jurors also heard a similar account in audio from a surreptitious recording of a 2008 interview between Mr. Davis and police officers, during which Mr. Davis said his nephew had fired the shots. And they saw a snippet from the 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” which Mr. Davis now argues was fiction.
“Them jumping on my nephew gave us the green light to want to do something,” the book read.
3. The defense said Mr. Davis was known to lie.
Because of numerous statements Mr. Davis made linking himself to the killing, the defense is in the somewhat uncomfortable position of having to convince the jury that the defendant is prone to embellishing, or outright lying.
Michael Sanft, Mr. Davis’s defense lawyer, showed on a large monitor a slide that had a single word — “bullshit” — and said that “Keffe was known to do this.”
Mr. Sanft suggested that law enforcement came to the same assessment when Mr. Davis spoke to them in 2008 and 2009 about the shooting, seeking to provide them with information that would help him avoid a prosecution on drug charges.
Mr. Davis “was never charged for any of what he said during that time period, and it’s because they knew he was full of crap,” Mr. Sanft said. “Otherwise they would’ve.”
4. The defense urged jurors to focus on “facts.”
For years, the investigation into Mr. Shakur’s death stalled because of a lack of evidence. The murder weapon was never recovered. Neither was the white Cadillac that Mr. Davis and his associates were said to have been riding in.
Characterizing the investigation into Mr. Davis as sloppy and incomplete, Mr. Sanft asked jurors, “What facts do they have to even put Keffe D in a car in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996? What facts?”
Mr. Sanft suggested that detectives had not properly interrogated alternative theories for the murder, and had put all of their effort into convicting his client.
5. Mr. Davis’s allegations against Sean Combs went unspoken.
In Mr. Davis’s telling over the years, the shooting in Vegas was not just an act of gang retaliation but the result of a request from Mr. Combs, the head of the New York-based Bad Boy Records, who was at odds with Mr. Knight’s Los Angeles-based Death Row Records. Mr. Combs, who is currently in prison on a prostitution-related conviction, has long denied any connection to Mr. Shakur’s death.
That motive for the murder shows up in Mr. Davis’s memoir and in the 2008 interview that he gave to the police, but in its opening statement, the prosecution focused entirely on the killing as an act of gang retaliation.
Mr. Combs was only mentioned once, when Mr. Palal said Mr. Combs had hired Mr. Davis’s Crips set as “unofficial security” for East Coast rappers on visits to the West Coast. Mr. Palal tried to frame Mr. Davis as at odds with Mr. Shakur, who was not a gang member but “associated” with the Mob Piru Bloods.
6. The first witnesses called said they don’t know who killed Mr. Shakur.
The prosecution called on witnesses to the immediate aftermath of the drive-by shooting, but who did not identify anyone involved in the killing.
Garry Dale, a Las Vegas Police officer on bike patrol, said he had stopped Mr. Shakur and Mr. Knight before the shooting because their black BMW did not have a rear license plate. Mr. Dale said he saw Mr. Shakur being pulled out of the car with gunshot wounds 10 minutes after that traffic stop. Mr. Dale said he rode with Mr. Shakur in an ambulance to the hospital, asking who had shot him.
Mr. Shakur replied, “‘No, we’ll take care of it.’”
“I couldn’t get him to talk any further,” Mr. Dale testified.
Ingrid Stokes, a passenger in a car full of women who were following Mr. Shakur to a club, said she heard shots ring out and was later questioned by the police on the scene.
Asked why there was fear around speaking about what happened that night, to this day, she told the courtroom, “Snitches get stitches,” adding, “But I didn’t see anything.”
