THE MAN ACCUSED of murder in connection with the gang-feud slaying of rapper Tupac Shakur a quarter of a century ago was back in a US court Thursday.

Duane “Keefe D” Davis, 60, was charged last month over the killing, despite not being the man wielding the weapon in Las Vegas in 1996.

Today’s hearing was intended to be an arraignment, after the original hearing was delayed.

But defense attorney Ross Goodman asked for the case to be postponed again, saying that although he was there to represent Davis, he had not been formally hired.

“I’m going to give you two weeks, but in two weeks we’ve got to get this case moving,” District Judge Tierra Jones told him.

At the arraignment, Davis will be expected to enter a plea to the charge of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.

Davis has long acknowledged his involvement in the slaying, boasting he was the “on-site commander” in the effort to kill Shakur and Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight in revenge for an assault on his nephew.

Under Nevada law, anyone who aids or abets a murder can be charged with the killing, in the same way that a getaway driver can be charged with bank robbery even if he never entered the bank.

Shakur, the best-selling hip-hop artist behind hits such as “California Love,” “Changes,” and “Dear Mama,” was a major star in the world of rap when he was gunned down on 7 September, 1996. He was just 25.

He was signed to Death Row Records, an outfit associated at the time with Los Angeles street gang Mob Piru, which had a long-standing beef with the South Side Compton Crips – a group in which Davis was a key figure.

Prosecutors said last month that what happened on the night of the killing had been largely understood for many years, but they had not had sufficient admissible evidence to advance the case.

That began to change when Davis, reportedly the only person in the car that night still alive, published an autobiography and spoke about the crime for a TV show.

© AFP 2023