Tupac Murder Trial: Week One Brings Confessions, Confrontation and a "Bullshit" Slide
The first week of the Tupac Shakur murder trial wrapped up on Friday, August 21, in a Las Vegas courtroom — nearly 30 years after the rapper was shot in a drive-by on the Strip and died six days later. Defendant Duane "Keffe D" Davis faces murder charges, with prosecutors arguing he orchestrated the 1996 killing as an act of revenge.
Prosecutor Binu Palal told jurors that Davis did not pull the trigger himself but made sure the shooters were armed and ready. The motive, the prosecution said, went back to a brawl at the MGM Grand hours before the shooting, where Shakur's entourage beat up Davis's nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson Billboard.
Davis's defence attorney, Michael W. Sanft, pushed back hard. He told the court his client's statements about the shooting had been fiction, with no hard evidence to corroborate them, and displayed a presentation slide to jurors that read "Bullshit" Billboard. Sanft also challenged the reliability of a book Davis wrote, in which prosecutors say Davis described giving the gun used in the murder to his nephew Anderson. Davis's lawyers have argued that the written account is unreliable BBC.
The first witness was Las Vegas police officer Garry Dale, who witnessed the aftermath of the shooting and rode in the ambulance with Shakur. Dale testified that Shakur, sitting in the passenger seat of the car, was hit multiple times and repeatedly told him "We'll take care of it" instead of naming who shot him Billboard. Suge Knight, the Death Row Records co-founder driving the car, survived the attack NPR.
Tuesday's testimony brought a heated exchange. Former Bloods gang member James McDonald, linked to Knight, sparred with Sanft on the stand. McDonald told Davis directly: "Talk to your lawyer, man." Then he turned to Sanft and said: "I'm not finna send him to prison. You are!" Billboard. Also testifying that day was Reggie Wright Jr., a former head of security at Death Row Records.
On Thursday and Friday, jurors heard audio recordings of meetings in 2008 and 2009 in which Davis discussed the shooting with police detectives. In those tapes, Davis told investigators that his nephew Orlando Anderson had fired the fatal shots. He also suggested that Sean "Diddy" Combs, then known as "Puffy," was involved in conversations about the killing Billboard.
The recordings come with a legal complication. Investigators had told Davis during those meetings that "nothing you say today can be used against you." But the judge in the current case ruled that Davis waived that immunity by discussing the same events publicly in the years since Billboard.
That ruling — letting in statements Davis was once assured were protected — may prove central as the trial continues. Whether jurors accept the tapes as confession or as the unreliable storytelling the defence claims will shape the verdict. The trial resumes after the first week of testimony 8 News Now.
