LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former gang leader is petitioning for the dismissal of all charges against him in connection with the 1990s slaying of rap music legend Tupac Shakur. Attorney Carl Arnold lodged the motion on Monday in the District Court of Nevada, seeking to have charges against Duane Davis dropped in the 1996 shooting of Shakur. The motion cites “egregious” constitutional breaches due to a 27-year delay in prosecution. It also contends a lack of corroborative evidence and failure to uphold immunity agreements provided to Davis by federal and local authorities.
Arnold remarked in a news release, “The prosecution has failed to justify a delay spanning decades that has irrevocably biased my client. Furthermore, the failure to honor immunity agreements undermines the integrity of the criminal justice system and casts doubt on this prosecution.”
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing. Wolfson has previously asserted that the evidence against Davis is compelling and that the credibility of Davis’ version of events, as detailed in a 2019 memoir, will be determined by a jury.
Davis, originally from Compton, California, was apprehended in connection with the case in September 2023 near Las Vegas. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and has been seeking release since shortly after his arrest.
Davis stands accused of orchestrating and facilitating the shooting that resulted in the death of Shakur and the injury of rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight following a confrontation at a Las Vegas Strip casino involving Shakur and Davis’ nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.
Authorities have indicated that the gunfire was a result of rivalry between East Coast factions of a Bloods gang sect and West Coast factions of a Crips sect, including Davis, vying for supremacy in a genre then known as “gangsta rap.”
In interviews and a 2019 tell-all memoir recounting his leadership of a Crips gang sect in Compton, Davis disclosed providing a .40-caliber handgun to Anderson, his nephew, in the back seat of a car. Shots were allegedly fired at Shakur and Knight from the vehicle at an intersection near the Las Vegas Strip. Davis did not identify Anderson as the shooter.
Shakur succumbed to his injuries a week later in a nearby hospital at the age of 25, while Knight survived and is presently serving a 28-year prison sentence for his role in the 2015 killing of a man from Compton.
Anderson denied involvement in Shakur’s demise and passed away at the age of 23 in 1998 in a shooting in Compton. The other two individuals in the car are deceased as well.
During testimony before a grand jury, a Las Vegas police detective disclosed that authorities do not possess the gun used in the shooting of Shakur and Knight, nor did they locate the vehicle from which the shots were discharged.
