Las Vegas (CNN) — Close to 30 years after Tupac Shakur was fatally shot near the Las Vegas Strip, 12 jurors and four alternates have been selected and tasked with determining whether Duane “Keffe D” Davis is guilty of murdering the rap legend.
The group consists of 10 women and 6 men.
The jury was whittled down significantly after days of questioning from over 100 Clark County residents who’d been yanked from their daily lives and summoned to a Las Vegas courtroom. They represent a group of ordinary Clark County denizens – among them a self-improvement coach and a mailman – who will now be saddled with possibly resolving one of hip-hop’s longest-lasting “Who-done-it?” mysteries.
Davis, 63, is the first and only person to face charges in Shakur’s death, which has sparked decades of speculation and spawned documentaries, books and conspiracy theories.
Pointing in part to the memoir Davis wrote, “Compton Street Legend,” prosecutors say he didn’t fire the deadly shots, but instead orchestrated the killing. The judge has ruled that the book, and Davis’ previous police interviews, are admissible as evidence. He’s pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further, or assist a criminal gang.
Davis appeared in court each day of jury selection, seeming quiet and focused, following along intently as each potential juror answered questions from Judge Carli Kierny and each side’s attorneys. Potential jurors were questioned about topics central to the case: gangs, guns, rap music, and the nature of memory and facts.
A semblance of justice for Shakur has been a long time coming: The youngest potential jurors questioned were born nine years after the rapper was killed.
Opening statements are slated to begin on Monday. The trial is expected to last four to five weeks in all.
On the first day of jury selection, Davis waived his right to be sentenced by the jury. That means if he is convicted, he will be sentenced instead by the judge.
Fans and fanfare
In an unassuming room on the second floor of the courthouse for Nevada’s eighth judicial district, there was no mistaking which trial was starting August 10. The room was filled with people wearing Tupac shirts, some with Tupac tattoos peeking out from their sleeves.
By the second day of jury selection, a sign had appeared with strict rules: “Appropriate attire is required to enter the courtroom,” it read. “Clothing, hats, buttons, pins or other items that show names, photos, images, messages or symbols related to the case are not allowed.”
The room full of Tupac fans – who sat alongside journalists and some of the rapper’s relatives and one-time associates – was a testament to the lasting legacy of his music and the sense of tragedy and intrigue around his killing. Shakur was just 25 years old when he died, several days after being shot while driving near the strip. But he had already become an icon in hip-hop and his music – marked by thoughtful lyrics about social issues and universal themes like heartbreak – is still popular decades later.
Getting into the courtroom required arriving at the courthouse, an airy building in downtown Las Vegas, as much as an hour early and waiting for several hours on the first day.
For some attendees, it required a plane. Darryl Harper, who was one of Shakur’s labelmates at the West Coast hip-hop label Death Row Records, caught a flight from Georgia when he heard that the murder trial was starting.
“It’s very important that I’m here,” he said. “I want fans to know I was here, still supporting Tupac.”
He says he wants justice for his lost friend. But he said he also wants “them to have the right person too – I don’t want them to get just anyone to say they solved the Tupac case.”
All Eyez On Tupac
“Is he a singer?”
The question, asked by a potential juror, was met immediately with raucous laughter in the courtroom. It’s funny because of Shakur’s near-ubiquity in pop culture – which has presented a unique problem for attorneys in Davis’ case.
It would be nearly impossible, as Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal said multiple times throughout questioning, to seat a jury entirely with people who had never heard of Shakur (though a few potential jurors, like the aforementioned self-professed country fan, came close).
Instead, Palal said being a good juror means, “being open-minded, being someone who’s not skeptical of someone just because of where they’re from or what they’re like, but just being able to take in the evidence and evaluate it on its merits.”
Questioning of potential jurors captured the difficult quest of trying to find those who don’t have preconceived notions about the killing, which has been plumbed in several documentaries and countless podcasts and social media videos. Prosecutors asked multiple times if potential jurors had seen the four-part Netflix docuseries, “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” released at the end of last year. The series charts Combs’ rise and fall, including his founding of Big Boy Records in the 90s, which had a fraught rivalry with the label that signed Shakur, Death Row Records.
It’s one of several ways that Combs, also known as “Diddy,” has haunted the proceedings. Combs, who is currently serving prison time for transportation to engage in prostitution, has never been charged with a crime in relation to Shakur’s killing.
But he, along with Death Row Records cofounder Marion “Suge” Knight, was named on a list of over 200 possible witnesses that Palal read out to the pool of potential jurors. Palal specified that only 30-40 witnesses would likely be called during the trial. Combs is mentioned dozens of times throughout Davis’ memoir.
Several potential jurors offered their own accounts of interactions with Combs. One, who was ultimately seated, said that he regularly served Combs while he was employed in a past job at a nightclub; another said she had attended a party at Combs’ home in Los Angeles. Both said they didn’t have personal interactions with the disgraced rapper and said it wouldn’t affect their service on the jury.
The case is historic, but the proceedings were largely methodical. Over three days, potential jurors were questioned individually about their past encounters with law enforcement, their past knowledge about Davis and the case, their understanding of the presumption of innocence, and whether they have a proclivity for watching crime shows.
Although the charge in the case is grave, the mood was at times light-hearted during jury selection. Michael Sanft, the defense attorney who’s said he’s representing Davis pro bono, asked most potential jurors their favorite movie – which he said offers some “psychological” insight into the pool. He also asked methodical questions about the details of jurors’ jobs, sparking long explanations of the methodology of grading diamonds or conducting PCR tests in a laboratory. As the questioning stretched for hours, the group of members of the public in the courtroom dwindled; some dozed off in the courtroom.
The-CNN-Wire
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