Duane “Keffe D” Davis was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Oct. 13, 2026, for the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, according to Billboard. Judge Carli Kierny handed down the sentence in a Las Vegas courtroom nearly three decades after Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting.
Davis, 63, was convicted in August of murdering Shakur, who was 25 when he died on Sept. 7, 1996. The shooting took place in Las Vegas following a Mike Tyson boxing match, Billboard reported.
What Happened In Court
Prosecutors alleged that Davis, a former Los Angeles gang leader, ordered the killing in revenge after Shakur beat up Davis’s nephew earlier that same night, according to Billboard. That allegation formed the center of the prosecution’s case, which tied the shooting to a long-running local gang rivalry that overlapped with the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop feud of the era.
Davis was identified in court records as a Crips gang leader active in 1990s Los Angeles. Prosecutors built their case primarily on Davis’s own public statements, including a 2019 memoir and podcast interviews in which he described his role in the killing, Billboard reported. At trial, prosecutors called 24 witnesses and played more than eight hours of recordings, most of them capturing Davis discussing his involvement.
The defense, led by attorney Michael Sanft, presented only a brief case. Defense attorneys argued that Davis’s public statements were fictional, crafted to boost his notoriety and sell books rather than confess to an actual crime, according to Billboard.
Responses
Sekyiwa Shakur, Tupac’s sister, testified during the proceedings that losing her brother crippled her family emotionally and mentally and that she still misses him, Billboard reported.
Judge Kierny addressed Davis directly at sentencing, telling him, “You are going to face justice for what you did on Sept. 7, 1996.” She added that “the world never forgot about Tupac” and said of the loss of a life, “You don’t get to take a man from his family, you don’t get to take his very life, his whole future from him and just walk away from it. Especially when that man is Tupac Shakur.”
Prosecutors had urged the judge to impose the maximum possible sentence, arguing that Davis’s repeated public statements about the crime amounted to continued punishment of Shakur’s family, according to Billboard.
What It Means
The sentence closes a prosecution that began in September 2023, when authorities unveiled a murder indictment against Davis. Neither the Tupac shooting nor the killing of The Notorious B.I.G., who was shot and killed months after Shakur, had been charged for decades before Davis’s indictment, according to Billboard. Davis’s case marks the first time prosecutors brought formal charges in the Shakur killing.
For fans who have followed the case since the 1990s, the sentencing provides the first legal resolution to a killing that has shadowed hip-hop history for nearly 30 years. The conviction rested heavily on Davis’s own words rather than new forensic evidence, a detail that shaped both the prosecution’s strategy and the defense’s pushback at trial.
What’s Next
The sentence of 40 years to life stands as the court’s ruling following Davis’s August 2026 conviction. Any decision by Davis’s defense team to appeal was not addressed in the source.
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