After 30 years: 40 years in prison for the gang leader behind the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur

Duane "Keffe D" Davis, a 63-year-old former gang leader, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances in the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur. The sentence will be handed down on October 13, and the maximum possible penalty is life imprisonment without parole. Davis announced he will appeal.

Duane "Keffe D" Davis, a 63-year-old former gang leader, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances in the 1996 shooting death of rapper Tupac Shakur. The sentence will be handed down on October 13, and the maximum possible penalty is life imprisonment without the possibility of release. Davis announced he will appeal the decision. The prosecution argued that Davis organized the shooting as an act of revenge, after Shakur and his associates beat his nephew, but he was not necessarily the one who pulled the trigger. The defense, meanwhile, argued that the case is based on a memoir and on unreliable recordings, and that there is insufficient supporting evidence. The other three people who were in the car from which the shots were fired have since died. Tupac Shakur, one of the most prominent rappers of that era, was shot dead in Las Vegas shortly after watching a boxing match featuring Mike Tyson. Shakur was riding in a car with the founder of Death Row Records when another car approached them at an intersection and its occupants opened fire on him. Shakur was hit four times and taken to hospital, where he died of his wounds six days later, at the age of 25. The murder took place at the height of the violent rivalry between the East Coast and West Coast rap camps in the United States, and became one of the most publicized cases in the history of American music. For nearly three decades no indictment was filed in the case, until the investigation was renewed in recent years. At the center of the case stood Davis, a former senior member of the South Side Compton Crips gang, who was the uncle of Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson — a young man who was involved in a brawl with Shakur and his entourage hours before the shooting.