Keffe D sentenced to 40 years in prison for Tupac Shakur’s murder [Photo:Courtesy]
Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been sentenced to at least 40 years in prison for the killing of American rap icon Tupac Shakur, nearly three decades after the fatal shooting.
The 63-year-old former gang leader was sentenced in Las Vegas on Tuesday, October 13, after a jury found him guilty of murder with a deadly weapon over Shakur’s shooting in September 1996.
According to the BBC, prosecutors argued that Davis played a leading role in the attack despite not being the person who fired the gun. They said he organised the shooting and supplied the weapon used by his nephew, Orlando Anderson.
Anderson, who denied involvement in Shakur’s killing, died in an unrelated shooting in 1998.
During the sentencing hearing, Judge Carli Kierny said Davis could not take another person’s life and escape responsibility for the consequences.
“You don’t get to take his very life, his whole future from him, and just walk away from it. Especially when that man is Tupac Shakur, the world never forgot about him and his death,” the judge said.
Shakur’s family also addressed the court, describing the lasting pain caused by his death.
His sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, said the loss had deeply affected their family and urged the judge to impose the maximum possible sentence. She told the court that her brother had wanted to make a difference in the world and help his community.
His brother, Maurice Shakur, also appealed for a lengthy prison term.
Davis, however, maintained that he would challenge the conviction, telling the judge he intended to appeal.
The prosecution relied heavily on Davis’s own accounts of the shooting, including statements in which he acknowledged being inside the white Cadillac from which the gunfire was directed at Shakur’s vehicle.
His involvement came under renewed public scrutiny after he discussed the killing in interviews and his 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend.
Davis had also spoken to investigators in 2008 during an inquiry connected to the killing of fellow rapper The Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace. Prosecutors later argued that Davis’s public disclosures had undermined an agreement that had protected him from prosecution.
His defence team disputed the prosecution’s case, arguing that his statements were exaggerated to generate publicity and sell books.
Shakur was 25 when he was shot in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996. He died six days later, leaving behind a musical legacy that continues to influence hip-hop.
His killing became one of the most widely discussed cases in American music history, attracting years of speculation before Davis’s conviction.