Nearly 30 years after Tupac Shakur was fatally shot in Las Vegas, the question of whether anyone will be held criminally responsible for his death is now in the hands of a jury.

Jurors began deliberations Monday in the first-degree murder trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis after prosecutors and the defense delivered their closing arguments. Davis, the only person ever charged in connection with Tupac’s 1996 killing, has pleaded not guilty.

The final arguments brought the central conflict of the trial into sharp focus: prosecutors are asking jurors to believe Davis’s own descriptions of what happened, while his defense argues that the stories Davis spent years telling publicly were exaggerated and embellished.

Prosecutors put Keffe D’s own words at the center

Prosecutors argued that Davis participated in a retaliatory plot following the September 7, 1996, altercation at the MGM Grand involving Tupac, Marion “Suge” Knight and Davis’s nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.

The state does not allege that Davis personally fired the shots that killed Tupac. Instead, prosecutors contend that his alleged participation in obtaining the weapon and organizing or facilitating the attack can make him criminally responsible for the murder under Nevada law.

Much of their case has been built around Davis’s own words.

Jurors heard material from old police interviews, recorded conversations and Davis’s public accounts of the shooting. Prosecutors also pointed to his memoir, Compton Street Legend, in which he described being inside the Cadillac involved in the shooting and passing a gun toward the rear of the vehicle.

The Associated Press reported that prosecutors argued Davis called the shots for the attack, while the defense maintained that the state failed to support his public claims with physical evidence.

The defense says the stories were entertainment

Defense attorney Michael Sanft attacked the prosecution’s foundation from the opposite direction.

The defense has maintained that Davis exaggerated his involvement in Tupac’s murder as the case became commercially valuable through interviews, documentaries and his book. Sanft argued that the accounts were braggadocio intended to make money rather than reliable admissions.

That argument became particularly significant during the final days of testimony. Investigators acknowledged that important portions of Davis’s account could not be independently verified, including his claimed presence inside the Cadillac.

Davis ultimately chose not to testify in his own defense. Jurors must therefore evaluate his recordings, interviews and memoir alongside witness testimony and the circumstantial evidence presented at trial.

The contradiction the jury must resolve

The case has arrived at an extraordinary contradiction.

If Davis was telling the truth when he repeatedly discussed the shooting, prosecutors argue that his own statements help establish his participation in the murder. If he was lying or exaggerating, as his defense argues, jurors must determine whether prosecutors presented enough independent evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Prosecutors acknowledged that the case is heavily circumstantial but argued that the accumulated evidence and Davis’s statements point toward the same conclusion. The defense says nearly three decades of missing physical evidence, unavailable witnesses and uncorroborated stories leave too much uncertainty for a murder conviction.

Tupac was shot on September 7, 1996, while riding with Knight near the Las Vegas Strip. He died six days later at age 25. Knight survived.

For decades, the killing remained one of hip-hop’s most infamous unsolved cases. Davis’s 2023 arrest eventually produced the first murder trial ever held over Tupac’s death.

Now the testimony is finished, the lawyers have made their final arguments and a jury is deciding whether Davis is legally responsible.

WWETV will continue following the Tupac Shakur murder trial for a jury question, a verdict or the continuation of deliberations.