Keffe D’s Tupac Murder Appeal Accepted — Days After His Lawyer Died
The Nevada Supreme Court has accepted Duane “Keffe D” Davis’ appeal of his conviction for the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur — and the appeal now has to move forward without the lawyer who filed it.
Davis’ attorney, Michael Sanft, filed the notice of appeal on October 30, 2026. Less than a week later, the 55-year-old was found dead at his Las Vegas home. The Clark County Coroner’s Office confirmed his death on November 6; an official cause and manner of death have not been released, and police have said the death does not appear suspicious.
Acceptance is not a win. The Nevada Supreme Court taking the appeal means the legal process moves forward — it does not mean Davis gets a new trial, and it does not overturn anything. His guilty verdict and his 40-years-to-life sentence stay exactly where they are while the appeal plays out.
As of November 9, the court had not yet received formal notice of Sanft’s death from the State Bar of Nevada. Once it does, Davis will get additional time to find new counsel and file the documents the appeal requires. Sanft had represented Davis pro bono, and the specific legal arguments the appeal will make have not been publicly confirmed yet.
A Las Vegas jury convicted Davis on August 31, 2026, of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon, reaching its verdict in under three hours. Judge Carli Kierny sentenced him on October 13 to 40 years to life. Davis, 63, has maintained his innocence throughout.
Davis was arrested in September 2023 — the only person ever charged in the September 7, 1996 shooting that killed Shakur six days later, at 25. Prosecutors argued Davis organized the shooting in retaliation for the confrontation involving his nephew, Orlando Anderson, and supplied the firearm; he was not accused of firing the fatal shots. The case leaned heavily on Davis’ own words — statements to investigators in 2008 and 2009 and his 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend.” Sanft had argued those accounts were exaggerated or fictionalized, that no physical evidence placed Davis in the Cadillac that night, and had fought to keep the 2008–2009 statements out of the trial.
At sentencing, Shakur’s siblings Sekyiwa and Mopreme Shakur addressed the court and asked for the maximum punishment.
What happens next is procedural: the State Bar’s notice reaches the court, Davis gets time to secure a new lawyer, and the appeal’s actual arguments get filed. Until then, the conviction stands.
Sources: FOX5 Las Vegas, via Baller Alert · Las Vegas Review-Journal (reported by The Sun and the New York Post)
With the lawyer who built the defense gone, does this appeal have any real shot — or is the verdict locked in either way?
