Tupac Shakur Shooting Trial: Opening Statements Set to Begin in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS -- Nearly 30 years after Tupac Shakur was shot to death on the Las Vegas Strip, Duane "Keffe D" Davis is set to face a jury as opening statements begin Monday in his murder trial.
Davis was arrested in September 2023 and charged with murder with the use of a deadly weapon, with an allegation that the killing was carried out to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. Prosecutors say he supplied the gun used by members of the South Side Crips in the drive-by shooting on Sept. 7, 1996. Shakur, one of hip-hop's most influential artists, died six days later at age 25. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
Opening statements are scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at the Clark County courthouse in Las Vegas, according to ABC News. The prosecution is expected to go first. Davis's attorney, Michael Sanft, can then either deliver his own opening statement or wait until the prosecution has rested its case, KSNV-TV in Las Vegas reported.
The trial formally got underway last week with jury selection. Prosecutors have released a witness list of more than 200 names, including Marion "Suge" Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records, the label Shakur was signed to at the time. Knight was in the car with Shakur when the gunfire erupted and was wounded in the attack. Knight, 61, who is serving a 28-year sentence on an unrelated involuntary manslaughter conviction, has said he will not testify.
The witness list also includes Kirk Burrowes, president of Bad Boy Records, a label that was allegedly connected with the Crips gang in New York City, while Death Row Records was allegedly associated with the Bloods in Los Angeles. Those affiliations have long fueled the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop rivalry that defined the mid-1990s and cast a shadow over Shakur's death.
About six months after Shakur was killed, Bad Boy's biggest star, Biggie Smalls -- known as the Notorious B.I.G. -- was fatally shot in a drive-by in Los Angeles. No arrest has ever been made in that killing, leaving one of the most enduring mysteries in music history unresolved.
Burrowes has accused Sean "Diddy" Combs of orchestrating Shakur's shooting. Combs has denied the allegation. He is currently serving a 50-month prison sentence after being convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
The trial is a historic milestone for a case that went cold for years before Davis's arrest. It brings into open court the street-gang politics, record-label rivalries and unresolved violence that have shadowed hip-hop since the mid-1990s, and it could add a measure of long-delayed accountability to a chapter of music history defined by tragedy.