Man Accused of Orchestrating Tupac Shakur's 1996 Murder Begins Trial in Las Vegas

Jury selection began Monday at the Clark County District Court in Las Vegas as the trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis started. Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips, faces a single count of murder with a deadly weapon intended to further a criminal gang. He has pleaded not guilty.

Family members of the late rapper gathered outside the courthouse, and his cousin, Kendrick Lesane, said, "Whoever had anything to do with it, whoever set it up, whoever had any hand in it should be locked up in prison."

Nevada Judge Carli Kierny questioned a pool of 75 potential jurors about medical issues, language barriers and conflicts of interest. The trial, expected to last about a month, will focus on whether Davis organized the attack and supplied the firearm, rather than on who fired the shots.

Prosecutors plan to call 35 to 45 witnesses, including former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, members of Shakur’s family, and individuals who were present in the city that night. Leonard Jefferson, who captured the last known photograph of Shakur, is slated to testify, as is Denvonta Lee, a former South Side Crips member who testified to a grand jury that Davis gave a gun to a nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, who then passed it to another associate who fired it.

The defense is expected to present a limited number of witnesses, among them an expert on false confessions. While music executive Marion “Suge” Knight, who survived the shooting, has indicated he will not testify, his potential testimony has been noted as significant by both sides.

The case, revived after Davis published a memoir in 2019 and was arrested in 2023, remains the most high-profile unsolved homicide in the hip-hop community.