October sentencing for Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis

LAS VEGAS (AP):

Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis could be sentenced to life in prison for orchestrating the 1996 killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur.

A jury found the 63-year-old guilty on Monday, finally bringing a measure of resolution to a case that had gripped hip-hop fans and lingered in the public imagination for decades.

Davis was convicted of a single count of murder with a deadly weapon. The jury deliberated for less than three hours after a week-long trial in Las Vegas.

After the verdict was read, Shakur’s sister, Sekyiwa ‘Set’ Shakur, cried and hugged the prosecutors. Davis’ son covered his face with one hand.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors in closing arguments earlier Monday that Davis acquired a gun and “went hunting” for Shakur and Death Row Records co-founder Marion ‘Suge’ Knight after the men had beaten up Davis’ nephew earlier that night.

“He is responsible [for] the murder of Tupac Shakur,” Palal said. “Tell him you hear him. Find him guilty.”

Prosecutors said that while his story had changed over the years, Davis repeatedly placed himself inside a white Cadillac from which the shots were fired. And they said that while he did not pull the trigger, evidence showed he’d called for the gunfire as a powerful gang leader the younger men in the car, including his nephew, were going to listen to.

Defence attorney Michael Sanft asked jurors if there was any evidence that Davis had ever called the shots before or after the shooting.

The panel of 16 jurors, four of whom are alternates, heard testimony from 24 prosecution witnesses and three defence witnesses over nine days.

The prosecution said the state would dismiss a gang enhancement charge because of witness logistics. Prosecutors declined to comment following the verdict, and members of Shakur’s family said they were waiting until sentencing, which is scheduled for October.

The trial brought to a head a decades-old case that has drawn the attention of hip-hop fans and true crime experts alike for years. Shakur, who was considered one of the most influential rappers of all time, was in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, and stopped at a red light when a white Cadillac pulled up beside him, and shots were fired. He died six days later from his wounds. Knight was also wounded but survived.

For years, nobody had been charged in the rapper’s death until Davis began making public statements, saying he was in the Cadillac and gave the gun to others in the backseat, calling the shooting a retaliation for the earlier beating of his nephew. Davis is the only person still alive among the four men prosecutors say were in the Cadillac.

While insisting Davis’ words alone were enough to convict him, prosecutors said a gang rivalry helped explain why the shooting happened.

Witnesses described the hostile rivalry between the Los Angeles gang sects leading up to Shakur’s death, and how the gangs became affiliated with two rival labels – Mob Piru with Knight’s Death Row Records and the South Side Compton Crips with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ Bad Boy Records.

The shooting death of Bad Boy’s the Notorious BIG six months after Shakur came up many times during the trial, with law enforcement witnesses saying Davis was briefly a suspect in that killing before being discounted. That case, which has also been an obsession of hip-hop fans, remains unsolved.