Jury Begins Deliberations in Tupac Shakur Murder Case After Closing Arguments

After nine days of testimony from nearly 30 witnesses, the jury deciding Duane “Keffe D” Davis’s fate began deliberations in the case over Tupac Shakur’s 1996 murder.

The panel has 16 members, including four alternates. Davis, 63, is the only person to have been tried for the rapper’s death. He faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon, with an added allegation that the crime involved an intent to promote, further or assist a criminal organization.

Prosecutor Binu Palal told jurors that Davis, his nephew Orlando Anderson and others decided to target Shakur after Anderson was involved in a confrontation with the rapper and his associates at the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas. Palal also described Davis as one of the leaders of the Southside Compton Crips, a characterization Davis rejected with gestures in the courtroom.

The prosecution said the case does not rely only on Davis’s public admissions that he helped organize the shooting. Palal argued that circumstantial evidence also brought the case to trial. He said Davis changed details of his account over the years, but never denied being at the crime scene between 1998 and 2023.

Palal presented Davis’s memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” as an admission of guilt, although Yusuf Jah co-wrote the book. Defense lawyer Michael Sanft challenged those statements, saying Davis had given conflicting accounts and that much of his story was invented. Sanft also questioned whether evidence placed Davis in Las Vegas that night, whether the earlier MGM Grand fight occurred as described, and whether the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police handled and secured the case file properly.