Michael Sanft, the defense attorney who represented Duane “Keffe D” Davis in his trial for the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur, told NBC News his client intends to appeal the conviction. “Even before the first set of jurors came in for jury selection, we knew it was going to be an appeal issue,” Sanft said. Davis was convicted Monday of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon. He will be sentenced, possibly for life in prison, on Oct. 13.
“For a jury to come back two-and-a-half hours after submitting it to them … they had pretty much made up their minds,” Sanft said. “We thought for sure they were going to, you know, spend time over the night to come back in the morning and really get into the evidence.”
In another interview, CBS News pointed out that Sanft had been part of jury selection and asked whether he worried about jurors coming in with preconceived notions about Davis’ guilt. “I think there were bigger issues outside of the jury selection,” he said. “The pretrial motions that were filed in this case really was where the battle was in terms of the case itself.”
Sanft told NBC that the crux of the appeal will rest on the judge’s decision to allow jurors to hear statements Davis made in a 2008 proffer interview related to the killing of the Notorious B.I.G., which ostensibly allowed him to tell the truth about crimes he committed or witnessed without punishment.
The lawyer believed the contents of this interview was “highly prejudicial,” according to NBC, though prosecutors made the interview and statements Davis made in a 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, the centerpiece of their case. Sanft argued that Davis was lying when he made these claims for street cred and that prosecutors had no material evidence to support his claims. “Just because someone says something doesn’t mean that it’s true,” Sanft told Las Vegas’ local CBS station. He also said he would not have done anything differently in his defense, though he joked he would have liked a psychic to help him with jury selection.
“No one ever wants to lose, especially something like this,” he told NBC. “But ultimately, at the end of the day, he understands that this is the next step. We have to take it before an appellate court. We have to go through that process, and then we come back at some point.”
Since an appeal would take place after sentencing, Sanft said his immediate plan is to argue for the minimum sentence. “[Davis] in his mid-60s,” the lawyer told NBC. “You know, at this particular point, any sentence is potentially going to be a life sentence for him. So, of course, we’ll be asking for the minimum, but that’s not a good option right now for him.”
Sanft will have 30 days to file a notice of intent to appeal after sentencing and another four months to file with the supreme court. Sanft told CBS he felt the process could take up to a year.
Meanwhile, Shakur’s family reacted to the conviction on Tuesday saying they were “elated and relieved” by Davis’ conviction. “We would like to thank the jury for thoughtfully fulfilling their duty and carefully listening to all the evidence,” a statement said.
