Michael Sanft, the attorney who represented Duane “Keffe D” Davis in the Tupac Shakur murder trial, has been found dead in Las Vegas. Days earlier, he had filed an appeal against his client’s conviction.
Michael Sanft, the defense lawyer of the man convicted of killing Tupac Shakur, was found dead in his Las Vegas home on Friday morning, November 6. His friend Michael Sloan confirmed the news to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
No cause of death has been released yet, but officials say it doesn’t look like foul play. His death comes just a week after he filed an appeal for his client, Duane “Keffe D” Davis.
He was still fighting the case
Sanft filed a notice of appeal against Davis’ conviction on October 30, as per court records seen by Fox 5 Vegas.
Davis was found guilty of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon in August. The trial had nine days of testimony, and the jury reached its verdict in less than three hours and in October, Davis was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.
When the judge asked if he wanted to say anything, Davis kept it short. “I’m good. I’m gonna appeal this case for sure,” he said.
How the case was finally solved
Tupac was shot four times in September of 1996, when he was 25 years old. He died in the hospital six days later and the case went cold for decades.
In the end, it was Davis himself who kept bringing it up. He spoke to investigators about it in 2008, then gave interviews, and in 2019 he wrote about it in his memoir, Compton Street Legend.
Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo has said that without that book, Davis probably would never have been charged. Prosecutors never claimed Davis pulled the trigger. They argued he planned the attack, and under Nevada law, that’s enough to be convicted of murder.
Hours before the shooting, Tupac and his entourage had beaten up Davis’ nephew, Orlando Anderson, inside the MGM Grand. Davis has said Anderson was the one who fired the shots. Anderson was killed in a shootout in 1998, which left Davis as the only person ever charged.
Sanft did the case pro bono. After the verdict, he told Fox 5 he had no regrets about how his team handled it. “We all did our part. I don’t see what I could’ve done differently,” he said.
He also shared what Davis told him before the jury came back. “Mr. Davis was the one who said, ‘Don’t worry about it, man, this is the first phase,’ and I said, “I understand, I hate to lose,'” Sanft said.
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