LOS ANGELES (AP) — The man charged with ordering the 1996 killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas is asking the Nevada Supreme Court to dismiss his murder charges.
Duane “Keefe D” Davis filed an appeal with the court Tuesday after a lower court judge upheld his charges.
Davis, the only man ever to be charged in Shakur's killing, was arrested in September 2023. Other conspirators in the drive-by shooting have since died.
The 62-year-old has admitted in interviews and in his 2019 tell-all memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” that he provided the gun used in the shooting.
His attorney, Carl Arnold, said Davis’ constitutional rights were being violated.
“Mr. Davis cooperated with law enforcement over the course of more than a decade, relying on repeated assurances that his statements would not be used against him — yet those very statements now form the core of the State’s case,” Arnold said in a statement.
Arnold first filed a motion to dismiss the case in January of this year, alleging constitutional violations because of a 27-year delay in prosecution. He also said Davis had immunity agreements granted to him by federal and local authorities.
A district court judge upheld his charges, saying he was not protected from prosecution because he had not provided proof of those immunity deals and that the decades-long delay was not intentional.
According to the appeal, Davis was interviewed in 1998 and 1999 by federal prosecutors under the agreement that his statements would not be used to prosecute him. At the time, he denied knowing who was involved in Shakur's killing.
He was interviewed again in 2008 and 2009 under the same conditions that he would not be prosecuted with his statements, according to the appeal. It was then that he described his “alleged involvement in the murder and identified the alleged shooter," the appeal said.
Arnold said prosecutors had not presented any evidence connecting Davis to the slaying other than his own statements, which is not enough for a trial. He asked the Nevada Supreme Court to grant their motion to dismiss the case, or recognize that he was granted immunity from prosecution for the statements he made during law enforcement interviews.
Davis remains in custody at the Clark County Detention Center. His trial is scheduled to begin in early February 2026.
Shakur’s death at 25 came as his fourth solo album, “All Eyez on Me,” remained on the charts, with about 5 million copies sold. Nominated six times for a Grammy Award, Shakur is still largely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time.
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