The attorneys for the person accused of killing rap icon Tupac Shakur in 1996 are pushing to suppress proof obtained in what they declare was an “illegal nighttime search.”
Las Vegas felony protection attorneys Robert Draskovich and William Brown filed a movement this week on behalf of their shopper, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who was charged within the drive-by taking pictures of the long-lasting rapper off the Las Vegas Strip.
Davis’ attorneys argue a choose relied on a “deceptive portrait” of Davis as a harmful drug vendor to grant the execution of a search warrant at night time, which ought to solely be carried out in distinctive circumstances, similar to if there’s a threat that proof will disappear if officers wait till morning.
In actuality, Davis, an ex- gang chief from Southern California, had left the narcotics commerce in 2008 and started doing inspection work for oil refineries, his attorneys say. He was a 60-year-old retired most cancers survivor with grownup youngsters and grandchildren and had been residing along with his spouse in Henderson, a metropolis exterior of Las Vegas, for 9 years on the time the warrant was executed.
“The courtroom wasn’t advised any of this,” his attorneys wrote within the movement. “In consequence, the courtroom licensed a nighttime search based mostly on a portrait of Davis that bore little resemblance to actuality — a clearly misguided factual dedication, in different phrases.”
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Division — which performed the search and picked up Davis’ digital gadgets, “purported marijuana” and tubs of images — declined to remark Friday, citing the pending litigation. On the time of the search, police stated executing the warrant beneath the quilt of darkness would permit officers to encompass and safe the residence, and that if Davis barricaded himself, the darkness would permit officers to evacuate the encircling houses with the least publicity to residents.
Davis was arrested in September 2023. He pleaded not responsible to first-degree homicide and sought to be launched since shortly after his arrest.
His attorneys declare Davis’ arrest stems from false public statements Davis had made wherein he claimed to be current within the white Cadillac from which Shakur was shot. They are saying he has by no means supplied particulars that might firmly corroborate his presence within the automobile, and that he benefited from saying he was current. He dodged drug expenses by telling the story in a proffer settlement, and he has made cash by repeating it in documentaries and his 2019 ebook, in keeping with his attorneys.
He sought to dismiss his homicide expenses within the Nevada Supreme Courtroom, however in November his petition was denied.
“Consider it this fashion: Shakur’s homicide was primarily the leisure world’s JFK assassination — endlessly dissected, mythologized, monetized — so it’s not arduous to see why somebody in Davis’s place may falsely place himself on the heart of all of it for private acquire,” his attorneys wrote.