Man charged with murdering Tupac seeks dismissal

Duane “Keefe D” Davis, charged in connection with Tupac Shakur’s murder, has filed a motion to dismiss the case.

As reported by the Associated Press, Davis’ attorney Carl Arnold filed the motion and claimed that his client’s rights were being violated by a 27-year delay in prosecution and a failure to honour prior immunity agreements that both federal and local authorities granted Davis after confessing to playing a role in the homicide back in 2008.

In a news release, Arnold said: “The prosecution has failed to justify a decades-long delay that has irreversibly prejudiced my client. Moreover, the failure to honor immunity agreements undermines the criminal justice system’s integrity and seriously questions this prosecution.”

At the time of writing, Davis’ trial is still set to go ahead on March 17. As noted by the Associated Press, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo has said that evidence against Davis is strong. However, Davis has previously pleaded not guilty to the charge of open murder with use of a deadly weapon with a gang enhancement and claimed that his past comments regarding the shooting of Tupac were simply “entertainment”.

Davis was taken into custody in September 2023 for his alleged involvement in the murder of rap icon Shakur. He was arrested by the Las Vegas police on September 29, two months after a house owned by his wife was raided by police, with documents stating police were looking for items “concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur.”

Davis, a former member of the Compton Crips gang, pleaded not guilty on November 2. He had been known to investigators for some time before his arrest, and has said in the past that he was in the Cadillac from which the shots at Shakur were fired in 1996. His arrest marked a major breakthrough in the case which had remained unsolved for 27 years.