A former gang member from the Los Angeles area who is accused of killing legendary hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur in 1996 in Las Vegas is scheduled to request on Tuesday that a court place him under house arrest in anticipation of the June trial.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis’s 60-year-old client is in bad health, doesn’t pose a threat to the public, and won’t run away to avoid going to trial, according to his court-appointed attorneys. They request that the judge set his bail at a maximum of $100,000.
Davis was arrested on September 29 outside his suburban Henderson home, where Las Vegas police had issued a search warrant in mid-July. Since then, he has entered a not-guilty plea to a murder charge and has been held without access to a bond. The shooting that also injured rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight left him the only person ever charged with a crime.
In a court document filed last week, the prosecution claims that witness safety is threatened if Davis is released, citing recordings of jail phone calls and a list of names given to Davis’ relatives.
Due to an unconnected shooting that claimed the life of a Compton businessman in 2015, Knight, now 58, was imprisoned in California for 28 years.
At the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas, where inmates’ phone conversations are often recorded, Davis is being kept in the interim. He might serve the remainder of his life in a Nevada state jail if found guilty.
Compton, California is where Davis is originally from. Recalling that he was the subject of an investigation into the murders of rival rapper Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, in March 1997 in Los Angeles, and Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas, he claims that in 2008 FBI agents and Los Angeles police granted him immunity from prosecution.