KEN RITTER, Related Press
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FILE – Rapper Tupac Shakur attends a voter registration occasion in South Central Los Angeles, August 15, 1996. A former Los Angeles-area gang chief jailed in Las Vegas slaying of hip-hop music icon Tupac Shakur in 1996 has employed a personal legal professional to signify him forward of his homicide trial scheduled for this summer time. Duane “Keffe D” Davis has fired court-appointed attorneys and employed legal protection legal professional Carl Arnold, in keeping with a court docket submitting launched Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. (AP Picture/Frank Wiese, File)
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former Los Angeles-area gang chief jailed in Las Vegas within the 1996 slaying of hip-hop music icon Tupac Shakur has employed a personal legal professional who indicated on Monday at what he expects shall be a historic trial for homicide.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis has fired court-appointed attorneys and employed veteran legal protection legal professional Carl Arnold, who stated in an announcement that his workplace was “honored by the chance to signify Mr. Duane Davis in what shall be some of the historic trials of the century.”
“We hope that Mr. Davis shall be discovered not responsible on the conclusion of his trial,” the assertion stated, including that Davis is anticipating the posting of bond so he will help put together his protection.
Robert Arroyo, one among Davis' former attorneys from the Clark County particular public defender's workplace, stated Monday that he and co-attorney Charles Cano wished Davis properly and referred inquiries to Arnold.
Arnold served through the public fatality overview as a consultant of kinfolk of individuals killed by the police. He has additionally been sanctioned twice by the Nevada State Bar throughout 20 years of observe.
One, in 2018, was for not correctly submitting paperwork within the defendant's attraction to the state Supreme Courtroom. The opposite, in 2021, was for not representing a defendant within the Las Vegas Courtroom of Justice. Every time, Arnold obtained a written warning and was fined $1,500.
Davis, 60, initially from Compton, Calif., is the one individual nonetheless alive who was within the automotive from which pictures have been fired within the September 1996 capturing that killed Shakur and wounded rap mogul Marion.” Suge” Knight. Knight is serving 28 years in a California jail for an unrelated deadly capturing within the Los Angeles space in 2015.
Davis has for years described his position in Shakur's homicide, although his protection attorneys have argued that his accounts exaggerated the violence to draw viewers and earn cash.
Prosecutors say Davis incriminated himself because the “shot-caller” in Shakur's homicide throughout accounts to a joint federal and Los Angeles Police Division process pressure in 2008; to Las Vegas police in 2009; in an interview for a BET documentary in 2017; in his personal ebook of every thing in 2019; and in newer interviews.
Arnold stated his consumer “can’t be convicted solely on the premise of his confession,” and that prosecutors should present corroborating proof to show Davis' guilt past an inexpensive doubt.
Davis was indicted by a grand jury in Las Vegas and arrested in September exterior his house in suburban Henderson. He has pleaded not responsible and stays jailed on $750,000 bail forward of a Feb. 20 standing verify within the case.
If he posts bond, Davis shall be below home arrest with strict digital monitoring. It was not instantly clear whether or not the change in attorneys would delay his present June 3 trial date.
Davis claims he was granted immunity from prosecution in 2008 by an FBI and Los Angeles police investigation into the Las Vegas homicide of Shakur and rival rapper Christopher Wallace, often known as The Infamous BIG or Biggie Smalls, six months later in Los Angeles.
Arroyo and Cano argued that police and prosecutors may have arrested Davis 15 years in the past however didn’t, that he’s ill after battling most cancers, which is in remission, and that he wouldn’t flee to keep away from trial.
His former attorneys additionally famous that prosecutors didn’t have the gun and automotive concerned in Shakur's capturing, and downplayed the credibility of former gang members as witnesses towards Davis.
