By RIO YAMAT, Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who is awaiting trial in the 1996 killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur, has lost a bid for a new trial in a separate battery case tied to a jailhouse fight.
The ruling came Wednesday after a tense hearing in a Las Vegas courtroom that underscored the high-profile status of the defendant and his upcoming trial in one of hip-hop’s most infamous crimes.
The jurors who convicted Davis of battery in the jailhouse fight were put on the witness stand Wednesday. One by one, each of them denied claims by Davis’ son and a man who describes himself as a journalist that they overheard one of the jurors talking about the battery case during a lunch break ahead of deliberations.
Both Davis’ son, Duane Davis Jr., and the self-described journalist, Richard Bond, testified Wednesday about hearing the juror’s comments in the hallway outside of the courtroom on the final day of a two-day trial in April.
“Those two witnesses do have a relationship and a bias and a motive to testify in a certain way, whether subconsciously or not,” Clark County District Judge Nadia Krall said while ruling from the bench.
It was revealed Wednesday when prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo questioned the men separately that they considered each other friends, that Bond had been sending money to both Duane Davis and his son, and that Bond had advised them to fire their attorney, Carl Arnold.
“Ever taken a class on journalistic ethics?” DiGiacomo asked Bond.
“No, I have not taken a class on journalistic ethics,” Bond said.
The fight in December 2024 in a common room was captured on security video. Prosecutors said Davis was being escorted by a corrections officer back to his unit when he and another man exchanged words and then started fighting. Arnold said he was ambushed and acted in self-defense.
DiGiacomo, who also is prosecuting Duane Davis in the Shakur killing, said after court that he had no comment. A spokesperson for Arnold’s office also declined to comment.
Arnold said in court Wednesday that his client did not receive a fair trial in the battery case because of the juror’s apparent comments. The juror himself denied it multiple times while on the witness stand.
Wednesday’s hearing was not the first time that the credibility of those with ties to Davis has been questioned in court.
Davis, the only person ever charged in Shakur’s death, had sought to be freed from custody shortly after his arrest in September 2023. But a judge rejected his request, saying she suspected a cover-up of the true source of funds for his bond.
A music record executive offering to underwrite Davis’ $750,000 bail at the time testified that he obtained the money legally and wanted to help Davis because he’s “always been a monumental person in our community.”
But the judge said she was skeptical after receiving two identical letters apparently from an entertainment company that Cash “Wack 100” Jones says wired him the funds as payment for his work. One letter was signed with a name that had no ties to the company, the judge said, while the other included a misspelled name and a return address tied to a doctor’s office.
Davis has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. He’s accused of orchestrating the fatal drive-by shooting of Shakur nearly 30 years ago at a traffic light near the Las Vegas Strip.
Prosecutors say the evidence against Davis is strong, including his own accounts of the shooting throughout the years in interviews and a 2019 tell-all memoir. His trial is scheduled for February.
Shakur’s death at 25 came as his fourth solo album, “All Eyez on Me,” remained on the charts, with some 5 million copies sold. Nominated six times for a Grammy Award, Shakur is still largely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time.
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