Tupac Shakur murder suspect seeks to postpone trial
Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis, the man charged with killing Tupac Shakur in 1996, is seeking to postpone his upcoming murder trial, which is scheduled to begin in March. A new motion filed on February 14th argued that there’s a need for new witness interviews.
According to Davis’ lawyers, new testimony from a private investigator could prove that he wasn’t in Las Vegas at the time Tupac was killed on September 13th, 1996. This comes despite Davis implicating himself in his memoir, Compton Street Legend: Notorious Keffe D’s Street-Level Accounts of Tupac and Biggie Murders, Death Row Origins, Suge Knight, Puffy Combs, and Crooked Cops, which was released in 2019.
“This case involves decades-old allegations, and with every new piece of evidence, it becomes increasingly clear that critical facts have yet to be fully examined,” his lawyer Carl Arnold said, according to Rolling Stone.
A hearing announcing whether the trial will be postponed will occur on February 18th. The motion claimed that new evidence could point to someone else being behind Tupac’s killing, and that also needs to be investigated before the trial date.
The 61-year-old suspect was arrested in September 2023 and pled not guilty to first-degree murder charges for the alleged killing of Tupac; he has been held without bail since.
Davis has been accused of planning Tupac’s murder, providing the gun that also wounded Suge Knight, who was driving the rapper down the Las Vegas Strip. Officers claim the shooting death was a response to Tupac getting into an altercation with Orlando Anderson at a casino following a Mike Tyson fight on September 6th, 1996.
In January, a judge decided Davis doesn’t have immunity following various motions filed by his attorneys. According to Nevada District Court records, the presiding judge, Judge Carli Kierny, denied Davis’ motion to dismiss the charges against him.
The motion claimed that the “unjustified” delay in proceedings led to a “dimming of memories, the death or disappearance of witnesses, and the loss or destruction of material physical evidence.” His attorneys said that facts about the case have been in the possession of Las Vegas police since 2009 and that the delay in bringing him to court has “irreversibly” compromised his right to a fair trial.