A Las Vegas court has sentenced Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the only person charged over the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur, to 40 years in prison, with the possibility of life imprisonment.The sentence was handed down on Tuesday, nearly 30 years after Shakur was shot near the Las Vegas Strip on September 7, 1996. A jury found Davis guilty of first-degree murder on August 31, 2026, after deliberating for less than three hours. He was credited with 731 days already spent in custody.
Judge Carli Kierny said Davis must face justice for taking Shakur’s life. “You don’t get to take a man from his family,” she said, adding that it “took us 30 years” for justice to arrive.
Prosecutors said Davis, a former leader of the Southside Compton Crips, organised the killing in retaliation for a fight earlier that night at the MGM Grand hotel. The fight involved Shakur’s entourage and Davis’s nephew, Orlando Anderson. They believed Davis planned the attack but did not pull the trigger.
Shakur, 25, was in a car with Marion “Suge” Knight when gunmen opened fire. He was hit four times and died six days later, on September 13, 1996.
Investigators built their case partly on Davis’s own statements in interviews, documentaries and a 2019 memoir.
Shakur’s sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, told the court the loss “crippled” her family emotionally and mentally. His stepbrother, Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur, said the rapper never had the chance to raise children or watch his nieces and nephews grow up.
