A defense attorney told a Las Vegas court Monday that his client lied in a memoir about the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur [1].
The strategy aims to prevent the jury from using the book as evidence of Duane "Keffe D" Davis's involvement in the drive-by shooting [3]. Because the memoir contains admissions regarding the planning of the crime and the supply of the murder weapon, the defense is attempting to create reasonable doubt by labeling the text as non-factual [1].
Michael Sanft, the attorney for Davis, said that the book was not intended to be a factual account. "My client lied in his book," Sanft said [1]. He said that the memoir is fiction [2].
Davis was indicted in 2023 [5] for his alleged role in the death of the legendary rapper. The trial opened on Aug. 17, 2026 [4] in Las Vegas, Nevada [6]. The prosecution's case relies heavily on the details surrounding the 1996 event [1].
The memoir in question, titled "Compton Street Legend," was published in 2019 [2]. In the text, Davis provided accounts of the events leading up to the shooting. However, the defense now argues that the book should be disregarded as evidence [3].
This legal maneuver comes as the court hears testimony from witnesses to the killing [7]. The defense maintains that the 2019 publication does not reflect the truth of the events that occurred 30 years ago [2].
“"My client lied in his book."”
The defense's attempt to categorize 'Compton Street Legend' as fiction creates a significant legal hurdle for the prosecution. If the jury accepts that the memoir was a dramatized work rather than a confession, the state loses a primary piece of evidence linking Davis to the logistics of the murder. This shifts the trial's focus toward the reliability of witness testimony and physical evidence from 1996.
