Overview
- Prosecutors opened their case Monday, Aug. 17, focusing on Duane “Keffe D” Davis’s 2019 memoir and past recorded interviews as proof he arranged the attack that killed Tupac Shakur without claiming he pulled the trigger.
- The trial began with former police, eyewitnesses and retired detectives testifying and the court playing hours of Davis’s recorded statements that place him in the Cadillac and describe passing a gun.
- Defense attorney Michael Sanft told jurors the memoir and past comments are exaggerated or fictional and attacked the original 1996 investigation as flawed and incomplete.
- Investigators have no recovered firearm or confirmed Cadillac and three men alleged to have been in the Cadillac are deceased, leaving few live witnesses and making decades‑old statements central to the case.
- Courtroom drama has followed opening testimony with a hostile subpoenaed witness refusing to name suspects, graphic autopsy photos shown in court, a reluctant possible witness in Suge Knight, and a nearby gunfire report that did not stop proceedings.