Case Coverage
NV v. Duane Davis
The Tupac Shakur Murder Trial · Clark County, Nevada
VERDICT: GUILTY
Start from the Beginning →
The Tupac Shakur Murder Trial · Clark County, Nevada
VERDICT: GUILTY
Duane Keith Davis, known as Keffe D, is on trial in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, charged with one count of murder with use of a deadly weapon in the September 1996 killing of Tupac Amaru Shakur. A grand jury added sentencing enhancements for use of a deadly weapon and for acting to promote a criminal gang. He has pleaded not guilty. He is presumed innocent, and the case will be decided by a jury before District Court Judge Carli Kierny. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
Shakur was shot four times at a stoplight on East Flamingo Road just after 11 p.m. on September 7th, 1996, hours after a brawl at the MGM Grand in which he and members of the Death Row Records entourage beat a man named Orlando Anderson. Anderson was Davis's nephew. Shakur died six days later at age 25. For twenty seven years nobody was charged. Anderson, long suspected of firing the shots, was killed in 1998 and never faced charges.
The State does not claim Davis pulled the trigger. It claims he ordered the killing and supplied the gun. There is no murder weapon, no DNA, and no living eyewitness who will name him from the stand. What there is, instead, is Davis himself: a 2008 interview with law enforcement, a 2018 appearance in a BET documentary in which he placed himself in the front seat of the Cadillac, and a 2019 memoir that describes the retaliation plan in first person. That documentary is what caused Las Vegas police to reopen the case. His defense is that he made it up to sell books and build a reputation.
We are not here to tell you he did it. We are not here to tell you he didn't. We are here to watch whether the State of Nevada can carry a burden this heavy, thirty years late, on a case built almost entirely out of the defendant's own words. Start with the background report below, then follow every day of trial with us.
Thirty years after Tupac Shakur was shot at a Las Vegas stoplight, the State has no gun, no DNA and no living eyewitness. Its best evidence is the book the defendant wrote about himself. Everything you need to know before the trial begins.
Read Full Background →Chat with the case. Explore the background report, key documents, and AI-generated summaries in Justice's voice. Your interactive command center for everything we cover.
Trial coverage begins the day proceedings do. A jury of twelve plus four alternates was seated August 13, 2026, and opening statements begin Monday, August 17, 2026, in Clark County District Court. Check back here as the trial unfolds.