The man arrested for the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur was granted bail on Tuesday with the Nevada judge approving house arrest with electronic monitoring until the trial, the Associated Press reported.
Attorneys for Duane Davis (AKA Keffe D) had asked for bail to be set at no more than $100,000, however, Clark County District Judge Carli Kierny set bail at $750,000. Davis’s attorneys told the Associated Press following the hearing that they believed that Davis could post that amount.
The defense argued that the 60-year-old Davis was in poor health following his battle with cancer and would not flee to avoid trial.
Following Tuesday’s hearing, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson told reporters that Judge Kierny would likely hold a “source hearing” to determine if the bail money was obtained legally.
The defense also asked for a postponement of the scheduled June trial date, citing the demands of preparing a defense based on over twenty years of evidence. While Judge Kierny did not set a new trial date, she did call for a status check on February 20.
Davis’s initial bail hearing was scheduled for January 2 but had to be postponed to give the defense time to respond to the prosecution’s allegations that, based on a jail telephone recording from October and a list of names provided to members of Davis’s family, the defendant posed a threat to witnesses if he was released on bail.
In a motion filed on Monday, Davis’s lawyers accused the prosecution of misinterpreting the recording and list to falsely claim that Davis posed a threat. The defense insisted that it was Davis who faced danger.
During Tuesday’s bail hearing, the prosecution argued that Davis never left the gang life, and his repeated admissions about his part in Shakur’s killing show that he is guilty of murder. Prosecutors insisted that the jailhouse phone recording suggested that Davis posed a threat to potential witnesses in the trial.
In her ruling, Judge Kierny acknowledged that Davis has “made a living” from describing Shakur’s killing “in graphic detail” and “talking about his past life” as a leader of the gang the South Side Crips, but agreed to house arrest with electronic monitoring.
Davis was arrested in Henderson, Nevada on September 29 and pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in November. He has been held in the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas.
