The Nevada Supreme Court has formally taken up Duane “Keffe D” Davis's appeal against his conviction for the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur — a case that has taken an extraordinary turn, because the Las Vegas defence lawyer who filed the appeal, Michael Sanft, died about a week after filing it. The clerk of the state Supreme Court electronically filed the case on Monday, November 9, and the court has set the deadlines that will govern the fight over whether Davis's 40-years-to-life sentence stands.
Source: Las Vegas Focal, court filings
Under the court's schedule, Davis has two weeks to file a transcript request form, three weeks to file a docketing statement, and 120 days to file his opening brief — the document that will lay out, for the first time, the legal grounds on which he says his conviction should be overturned. As of November 9 the Supreme Court had not yet received formal notification of Sanft's death from the State Bar of Nevada; FOX5 Las Vegas reported that once that notification arrives, Davis is expected to be given additional time to secure new representation and submit the required documents.
Source: FOX5 Las Vegas, via Baller Alert
The lawyer who filed the appeal, then died
Sanft, 55, filed the notice of appeal on October 30 and followed it with a request for draft transcripts dated November 2 — paperwork that shows he was still working the case days before his death. He was found dead at his Las Vegas home, and the Clark County Coroner's Office confirmed his death on November 6; no official cause or manner of death has been released. FOX5 reported that Sanft had tried more than 150 cases to a jury verdict and had argued before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Source: KLAS / 8 News Now, Las Vegas
His death leaves Davis, 63, without the lawyer who defended him through the trial. It does not cancel the appeal, and it does not change his legal position today: the guilty verdict and the prison sentence remain fully in place unless and until the Supreme Court rules otherwise. Docketing an appeal is a procedural step — it opens the case in the higher court; it is not a finding that anything was wrong with the trial.
Source: FOX5 Las Vegas, via Baller Alert
The conviction he is challenging
A Clark County jury found Davis guilty on August 31 of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon, returning its verdict after less than three hours of deliberation, FOX5 reported. On October 13, District Court Judge Carli Kierny sentenced him to 40 years to life in prison — a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 40 years — and gave him credit for 731 days already served in jail.
Source: KLAS / 8 News Now, Las Vegas
On October 22, Davis was transferred to High Desert State Prison, a maximum-security facility near Indian Springs, about a 45-minute drive north of Las Vegas, a Nevada Department of Corrections spokesperson told 8 News Now. The department describes the prison as housing the state's death-row population, high-risk-potential offenders and other prisoners requiring the highest level of supervision.
Source: KLAS / 8 News Now, Las Vegas
A 1996 killing, a 2023 arrest, and the defendant's own words
Shakur was shot on September 7, 1996, near Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas, while riding with Death Row Records founder Suge Knight. Prosecutors argued at trial that Davis arranged the shooting in retaliation for a casino fight earlier that night at the MGM, caught on video, in which Shakur and his entourage beat Davis's nephew, Orlando Anderson, after a Mike Tyson fight — an attack set against the era's Death Row versus Bad Boy feud and the rivalry between the Mob Piru Bloods and Davis's South Side Compton Crips. Prosecutors identified Davis as a “shot caller” in the Crips and, according to reporting on the case, as the only living survivor among the four men they placed in the white Cadillac from which the shots were fired.
Source: Las Vegas Focal, court filings
The prosecution's most unusual evidence was Davis himself. In his 2019 book “Compton Street Legend,” in private interviews with law enforcement and in paid media interviews, Davis described a role in Shakur's killing. After his 2023 arrest — nearly 27 years after the shooting — he recanted those accounts in interviews from jail with 8 News Now investigators. At trial, Sanft argued that Davis had lied about his involvement to make money from a memoir and documentary interviews, and that there was no evidence placing Davis in Las Vegas at the time of the shooting. The jury rejected that defence; the appeal will now test the conviction on the trial record.
Source: KLAS / 8 News Now, Las Vegas
The Supreme Court has docketed the case and set a briefing schedule — nothing more. Davis has not won a new trial, his conviction has not been overturned, and his 40-years-to-life sentence continues while the appeal is argued, a process that runs first through written briefs over the coming 120 days.
What happens next
Davis must first secure a new lawyer or have one appointed, and the court is expected to allow extra time for that once it is formally notified of Sanft's death. 8 News Now also reported that Davis has asked to retrieve personal items seized during the police investigation. After his opening brief is filed, the state will respond, and only then will the Supreme Court decide whether to order a hearing or rule on the papers. No outcome is expected quickly: for now, the man convicted of orchestrating one of the most famous unsolved-then-solved murders in American music remains at High Desert State Prison, and the appeal clock is running.
Source: KTNV Las Vegas, via AllHipHop