Nevada judge allows 2008 interview in Tupac Shakur murder trial

A Nevada judge ruled that prosecutors may use a 2008 police interview given by Duane “Keffe D” Davis when his murder trial over Tupac Shakur’s death goes to court. Judge Carli Kierny said the recording is admissible, a decision that puts Davis’s own statements before jurors in the only criminal case ever brought in the 1996 killing.

The ruling landed with trial on the calendar for Aug. 10. Davis, 63, faces a murder charge and life in prison without parole if convicted. Prosecutors have spent years trying to build a case around old statements, a 2019 book written by Davis and other contested material tied to the long-stalled investigation.

Kierny’s decision followed earlier fights over what jurors will be allowed to hear. On June 30, she denied a defense request to sequester the jury and ruled that Davis’s tell-all book could be admitted as evidence. Court TV later said defense attorney Michael Sanft had also sought to suppress recorded interviews made by Davis, along with the 2019 book, before Kierny rejected the motion.

The 2008 interview matters because it gives prosecutors a recorded statement from Davis years before his arrest in 2023, when the case finally moved into a criminal courtroom after decades of delays. That arrest revived a file that had long languished despite the national profile of Shakur’s killing.

Shakur was shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996, and died six days later, on Sept. 13. The case has remained one of the most high-profile unsolved murders in U.S. history, and Davis has been described in court coverage as the former gang leader accused of orchestrating the killing. With Kierny’s ruling, jurors are now set to hear not only the 2008 police interview but also other old evidence prosecutors say belongs in the case.