An ex-gang leader is seeking to have all charges against him dismissed in the 1990s killing of rap music icon Tupac Shakur. Attorney Carl Arnold filed a motion in the District Court of Nevada to dismiss charges against Duane Davis in the 1996 shooting of Shakur. The motion alleges constitutional violations due to a 27-year delay in prosecution and a lack of corroborating evidence.
The motion also claims that immunity agreements granted to Davis by federal and local authorities were not honored. Arnold stated that the prosecution's failure to justify the decades-long delay has irreversibly prejudiced his client and raised serious questions about the integrity of the criminal justice system.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson has not yet responded to the filing. He has previously stated that the evidence against Davis is strong and will be up to a jury to decide on the credibility of Davis' accounts, including those in a 2019 memoir.
Davis, originally from Compton, California, was arrested in September 2023 near Las Vegas. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges and has been seeking release since his arrest.
Davis is accused of orchestrating the shooting that killed Shakur and wounded rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight after a brawl at a Las Vegas Strip casino. The incident was reportedly linked to gang rivalry between East Coast Bloods and West Coast Crips groups vying for dominance in the gangsta rap genre.
In interviews and a 2019 memoir, Davis described his role as a leader of a Crips gang sect in Compton. He admitted to providing a handgun to another individual in the car from which shots were fired at Shakur and Knight, but did not identify the shooter.
Shakur succumbed to his injuries a week later, while Knight survived and is currently serving a prison sentence for an unrelated crime. The alleged shooter, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, denied involvement in Shakur's death and passed away in 1998. The investigation revealed that the murder weapon and the vehicle used in the shooting have not been recovered by the police.
