In Tupac Shakur Trial, Prosecution Builds Case Beyond Keffe D’s Statements

Closing arguments in the Las Vegas murder trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis shifted the focus Monday from his recorded confessions to the physical and testimonial record around Tupac Shakur’s September 7, 1996 killing. Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors the case was “about gang retaliation and revenge,” adding that it was “drenched with circumstantial evidence even beyond Mr. Davis’s statements.”

Palal leaned on hotel records placing Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, at the Excalibur from September 6 through 8, 1996, and South Side Compton Crips associate Corey Edwards at the Monte Carlo. Surveillance video captured the MGM Grand beating of Anderson by Shakur and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight earlier that night. Palal framed that assault as part of a chain that began at a Los Angeles County mall and included the alleged theft of a Death Row chain and medallion — what he called “an ultimate sign of disrespect.”

An unpublicized detail from Davis’s 2008 proffer — that a Chrysler Sebring carrying women was near the BMW during the shooting — was corroborated in court by Ingrid Stokes. She testified she had been in that car and had stayed silent for fear of retaliation. “Snitches get stitches,” Stokes told jurors. Palal used that alignment to argue