Suge Knight said he does not want to testify in the Tupac trial, putting a direct witness dispute at the center of the case as jury selection begins Monday in Las Vegas. Knight said from prison that the case is not about him, even though he was in the car when Tupac Shakur was shot.
“This trial has nothing to do with me,” Knight told News. He also said, “Leave me out of it,” and added, “if somebody brings me there, it's gonna hurt whoever brings me there. I promise you that.”
June 1996 to Monday
Knight is the only living eyewitness to the 1996 shooting of Tupac Shakur, which makes his refusal to cooperate more than a personal stance. Duane “Keffe D” Davis is on trial for murder over the shooting, and prosecutors say he allegedly gave his crew the order to open fire on Shakur in retaliation for a fight.
Shakur and Knight were in Las Vegas to see Mike Tyson fight Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand. After a casino-lobby fight involving Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, Knight was driving the BMW when Shakur was shot in the passenger seat on Sept. 7, 1996. Shakur died six days later.
Marion Knight in California
Marion “Suge” Knight said he still refuses to cooperate with law enforcement, and he has repeated that he does not want to be brought to court. In the months after Shakur died, he said, “I don't get paid to solve homicides.”
He is serving an unrelated 28-year sentence in California for voluntary manslaughter stemming from a 2015 fatal hit-and-run in Los Angeles. That leaves the trial with a witness who knows the core events firsthand but says he will not help either side build the record in open court.
Duane Keffe D Davis
Davis was arrested in September 2023, and jury selection starts Monday in Las Vegas. If Knight stays off the stand, the prosecution loses the most direct living account of the shooting’s aftermath, while the defense avoids facing a witness who can place himself and Shakur in the BMW before the gunfire.
“They make me come there against my will, if Keffe D's lawyers bring me there, it don't look good for him. If the prosecution brings me there, it don't look good for them. Leave me out of it,” Knight said last week. “You have people who wasn't there, wasn't in the car, but they're telling the story,” he added. For a case this old, that is the fight inside the fight.
