A jury in Las Vegas has found Duane Davis, the former street gang leader known by the nickname Keffe D, guilty of first degree murder in the 1996 killing of the rapper Tupac Shakur. According to the reports, Davis is the only person who has ever been charged in connection with the death of the hip-hop icon, and the verdict brings a case that had been followed for decades to a decisive moment, nearly thirty years after the shooting.
The jury did not need long to reach its decision. Reporters at the courthouse said the panel deliberated for under three hours before returning the guilty verdict of first degree murder. Members of Tupac Shakur's family and friends, who were seated in the front row of the public gallery, held hands, hugged one another and passed a box of tissues between them as the jury foreperson read out the decision.
The verdict came at the end of a trial that lasted about three weeks, during which the prosecution called twenty-five witnesses. Prosecutors never argued that Davis was the man who personally fired the bullets that killed Shakur. Instead, they told the court that he was the one who orchestrated the attack, casting him as the figure who directed the killing rather than the gunman who pulled the trigger.
According to prosecutors, the shooting was an act of retaliation. They said Davis was angry because his nephew had been beaten up earlier that night, on September 7, 1996, at a hotel in Las Vegas. That confrontation, prosecutors argued, set off the chain of events that ended with the drive-by shooting of the rapper on the streets of the city.
Much of the case hinged on Davis's own account of events over the years. Prosecutors pointed to statements he had made to police, to a documentary crew and in a book he had written, in which he described himself as being involved in the killing. Davis later claimed that all of those accounts were lies that he had told in order to sell his book, and he insisted that he did not actually have any involvement in Shakur's death.
The killing of Tupac Shakur has drawn attention for decades. He was shot in a drive-by attack in Las Vegas, and, according to the reports, next week will mark thirty years since his death. Davis remained the only person ever charged in the case, and the reporters covering the verdict noted that justice in the matter had been a long time coming for the family and friends who had waited so long for an answer.
Attention now turns to sentencing. According to the reports, Davis is due to be sentenced on October 13, and he could face life in prison. The guilty verdict was reached just days before the thirtieth anniversary of the shooting that killed a man described as one of the most influential artists of his generation.