Tupac Shakur murder trial begins in Las Vegas

Jury selection began Monday in Las Vegas in the trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the former South Side Compton Crips leader accused of orchestrating the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur.

Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty. He faces life in prison without parole if convicted. The proceedings are expected to last about a month, and jury selection is expected to continue through the week.

Prosecutors allege Davis ordered the killing and provided the gun used in the drive-by shooting. The trial is not expected to clearly establish who fired the shots that killed Shakur.

Shakur, also known as 2Pac, was shot in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, after attending a Mike Tyson boxing match. He died at 25.

Prosecutors say the shooting followed a confrontation at the MGM Grand casino in which Shakur and Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight beat Davis's nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson. Later that night, a white Cadillac carrying Davis, Anderson and others pulled up beside Shakur's car, and shots were fired from the Cadillac.

The cold case was revived after Davis published memoirs in 2019. In the book, Davis recounted being in the front seat of the Cadillac and handing a pistol to people in the back seat, but he did not identify the shooter. Everyone else who was in the Cadillac that night has since died.

Davis was arrested in September 2023. He later denied involvement, telling ABC News from prison in March 2025: “I'm innocent. I ain't killed nobody.” He said he was in Los Angeles on the night of the killing and claimed the memoir was inflated by a co-author to generate book sales.

Davis's lawyers unsuccessfully tried to keep the book, along with remarks he made to police in 2008 as a witness to the killing, from being introduced as evidence.

In May, Shakur's stepbrother Maurice Shakur filed a wrongful death lawsuit in civil court. The complaint says people involved in the killing have not been held accountable. The suit cites a TV documentary in which Davis says in a police interview that Sean Combs offered him $1 million to kill Shakur.