Tupac Shakur’s Brother Asked for the Longest Possible Sentence. Duane Davis Got 40 Years to Life.
by Jerome London · Thought CatalogUpdated 52 seconds ago, October 13, 2026
Three decades after Tupac Shakur was killed, a Las Vegas judge sent the only man ever convicted in his death to prison on Tuesday. Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis, 63, received a sentence of 40 years to life from Nevada Judge Carli Kierny: 20 years to life on the first-degree murder count, plus a consecutive 20 years to life for the deadly weapon enhancement.
Shakur’s brother, Maurice Shakur, asked the court for exactly that. “All Pac got was a death sentence, so the longest possible, your honor,” he said in his impact statement, telling the court the rapper never got to have kids, watch his nieces and nephews grow up, or face a trial of his own.
Kierny had little patience for Davis before handing down the sentence. “You don’t get to take a man from his family. You don’t get to take his very life, his whole future from him, and just walk away from it. Especially when that man is Tupac Shakur,” she said. “It took us 30 years, but at this time, you are going to face justice for what you did on Sept. 7, 1996.”
Davis was convicted on Aug. 31 by a jury of a single count of first-degree murder involving the use of a deadly weapon. A drive-by shooting struck Shakur and Death Row Records cofounder Marion “Suge” Knight in Las Vegas on the night of Sept. 7, 1996.
Knight survived. Shakur, 25 and at the height of his career, died from his injuries.
Davis didn’t fire the shots. As a leader of the South Side Compton Crips, he called them, prosecutors said, retaliation after Shakur and Knight beat up his nephew hours earlier. He admitted his role in recorded police interviews and in a 2019 memoir before his 2023 indictment, then pleaded not guilty and argued the confessions were false.
Clark County District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo pushed for the maximum, saying Davis “deserves the maximum sentence” because “he earned it” and calling him “the only one trying to profit off a killing he committed.” Shakur’s sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, told the court the loss sent her to the hospital multiple times for “depression, suicidal ideation, trauma, PTSD.”
Davis stayed defiant. “I’m going to appeal this case for sure,” he told the judge, adding that he wanted back the items taken from his house during the investigation. His attorney, Michael Sanft, said he plans to file that appeal.
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