Tupac Shakur murder suspect Dwayne “Caffe D” Davis asks to drop charges in new filing

It took nearly 30 years after the fact to arrest the only person ever accused of murdering iconic rapper Tupac Shakur, and now the alleged killer’s attorney says that delay is one reason the charges should be dropped.

In a statement filed Monday in Las Vegas, Dwayne “Caffe D” Davis said his constitutional rights were violated by an “unreasonably” lengthy delay that resulted in “obscured memories, the death or disappearance of witnesses, and the loss or destruction of property.” evidence”.

“The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, back in 2009, had the same set of facts that the Clark County District Attorney now alleges Mr. Davis is guilty of murdering Tupac Shakur,” Davis’ attorney, Carl Arnold, said in a statement. statement, alleging that the Clark County District Attorney’s Office “provided no reason as to why it waited another 14 years to prosecute” its client, and that Davis’ case was “irreversibly” compromised, his rights violated “in an extraordinary manner, which has never before been witnessed in the annals of the American criminal justice system.”

Arnold argued that prosecutors had no corroborating evidence beyond Davis’ admissions that the evidence “comes solely from the statements of Mr. Davis” and without independent sets of facts, the charges against him “must be dismissed.”

“Too many witnesses have died and evidence has been unavailable during the prosecution’s delay in this case,” Arnold said, listing the names of those believed to have been at the scene of the 1996 drive-by shooting of Shakur off the Vegas Strip by Suga Knight. The BMW with Shakur, three men who were allegedly in the Cadillac with Davis, Sean “Diddy” Combs, who Davis claimed was demanding $1 million from Knight and Shakur, according to ABC News.

But since all of these people are either dead or incarcerated, Arnold said, they are unfortunately unavailable.

In conclusion, Arnold argued, the immunity deal originally promised to Davis by the police officers who first encouraged him to begin telling his story is not being fulfilled.

Combs has long vehemently denied any role in Shakur’s shooting.

As ABC News reported last year, Davis confessed to his role in the 2008 murder of Shakur to detectives from the joint federal-Los Angeles task force.

According to police at the time, Davis made his confession as part of a so-called “plea agreement” so what he told investigators could not be used against him in court.

Davis then spoke to Las Vegas detectives in 2009 to retell his version of events — and reaffirmed his role as the “shooter” in Shakur’s murder, police said.

Arnold now argues that the original proposal should still be valid.

“In 2009, the State of Nevada possessed the facts that led to (Davis) arrest in 2023, including his alleged statement that he was in a white Cadillac and handed the gun to the backseat passengers that was used to shoot Tupac Shakur,” Arnold said, and prosecutors “now have to honor the original plea agreement proposal from 2008. and the LVMPD’s promise not to prosecute Mr. Davis.”

Davis’ attorney says prosecutors are “refused to honor the deals given to Mr. Davis by the federal government and the LVMPD.”

But the LVMPD was not involved in the joint task force agreement, and Vegas detectives did not promise never to pursue Davis, according to interview tapes and transcripts previously reviewed by ABC, only that they were not there to arrest Davis during it confession. , which was not an offer but rather a voluntary statement, prosecutors said, and in fact Davis admitted at the time that no Las Vegas authorities had promised him anything.

At the time, in 2009, Las Vegas authorities feared Davis would argue in court that both confessions were inadmissible because the offer gave him immunity even though Las Vegas police were not involved in the deal, officials told ABC.

And if the judge had sided with Davis, they believed it would likely have doomed any prosecution.

But that became a non-issue in the years that followed, as Davis eventually went on to repeatedly recount his confessed role in the killing, not only to police but also to the media, including in a 2018 documentary and in the pages of his memoir. will be published in 2019.

Davis’ own public words fueled the investigation, Vegas homicide chief Lt. Jason Johansson told ABC last year, and would be key to the case against him and eventually land him in the Las Vegas jail where he currently sits. held since his arrest in September 2023.

A hearing on Davis’ motion to dismiss is set for Jan. 21.

His trial is scheduled for March 17.