Keefe D murder charge upheld by Nevada judge in Tupac Shakur case
In September of 2023, Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis was indicted and then arrested on charges of murdering the late rapper 2Pac. The suspect was arrested following the reopening of the 1996 murder case when new evidence emerged.
The defendant, Keefe D, is the uncle of Orlando Anderson, who has been the suspected killer for many years. Anderson had an altercation with the All Eyez On Me rapper and his crew inside the MGM Grand in Las Vegas hours before the emcee was murdered.
Now, he has to face trial, and a judge has decided that he does not have immunity following various motions filed by Keefe D’s attorneys. According to Nevada District Court records, the presiding judge, Judge Carli Kierny, denied Keefe D’s motion to dismiss the charges against him on January 21st.
The motion was filed on January 6th and claimed Keefe D’s constitutional rights had been violated. Furthermore, the motion emphasised that the “unjustified” delay in proceedings had led to a “dimming of memories, the death or disappearance of witnesses, and the loss or destruction of material physical evidence.”
According to a report aired by ABC News, the defendant’s attorneys are highlighting how the facts about the case have been in the possession of Las Vegas police since 2009 and are insistent that the delay in bringing him to court has “irreversibly” compromised his right to a fair trial.
The motion also claimed that prosecutors have no evidence beyond Keefe D’s own testimony due to the death and incarceration of others who were potentially involved, such as Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight and his former rival Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs.
The motion filed by Keffe D’s lawyers on January 6th also argued that the defendant was promised immunity by the LAPD if he gave the details related to the fatal shooting. However, state prosecutors have failed to find any evidence of this and have ruled that there is no proof such an agreement was made.
Keefe’s lawyer, Carl Arnold, recently addressed the media, announcing, “There’s no evidence that he was involved [in Pac’s murder]. He did what Detective [Greg] Kading did: he put out a book, and he made money. Even the state’s main investigator, who testified at the grand jury, said this is all about making money.”
Keefe D wrote about the murder of 2Pac in his 2019 book Compton Street Legend, though his attorneys later claimed that prosecutors “did not delineate which parts of the book, if any, were written by Duane” as opposed to his co-author, Yusuf Jah. Furthermore, they also said that statements he made regarding 2Pac’s murder were strictly for “entertainment purposes.”