Aug. 18, 2026
Tupac Murder Trial: Defendant Duane Davis Is A Liar… According To The DEFENSE
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RSS Feed Opening statements and testimony began in the trial against Duane Davis, charged with the 1996 murder of rap icon Tupac Shakur. While prosectors acknowledge Davis was not the actual gunman, they claim he was the mastermind behind the murder and supplied the gun used to kill Shakur. The defense showed jurors a large slide with a single word on it: “Bullshit” and said their client was known for embellishing and lying about things. And that’s important, because it’s the only way for the defense to refute the prosecution’s evidence, which is Davis’ own repeated statements, confessions and written words about what happened that night on the Vegas Strip.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Tuesday, August eighteenth, and Test demony is officially underway in the Tupac trial, and we are getting a look at the defense strategy, and the strategy is don't believe anything the defendant says. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Roobes. This is an interesting strategy. It might be the only one that got it.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: You can't make it up.
00:00:28
Speaker 3: And yet they really don't have anywhere else to go when it comes to defending Dwayne Davis, because Dwayne Davis has provided and supplied the prosecution with pretty much all of their evidence, and so what.
00:00:44
Speaker 2: Do you do?
00:00:46
Speaker 1: So opening statements were something to see and it was remarkable. Robes. Yes, I guess we knew ahead of time, but they made clear. The prosecution says this act was done and he was a part of this and the role he played. They did it as an act of revenge. But the defense got up Robes and they are presenting to the jurors that every police interview, every podcast interview, every book he wrote, every quote from the defendant out there taking responsibility for orchestrating this and also providing the gun in this nineteen ninety six killing. He was all just doing it robes to embellish. He was flossing on all of us, essentially, just bragging about it, and it was just make belief.
00:01:34
Speaker 3: Or you could just use one word to sum up Dwayne Davis, according to his lawyer, who actually put up on a large monitor a slide that had a single word never seen this before in court bullshit.
00:01:50
Speaker 1: Yes, not the prosecution's case. By the way, that's not what he's saying. His client is full of He's it was remarkable. You can't believe anything this dude is saying. He is a liar. He don't believe him, and that is the defense strategy because rose it's kind of a solid one. There are not a lot of witnesses left. Well, excuse me, he's the only really witness left. Look Suge Knight was there. He's still alive, but he's in prison. But as far as the assailants involved in this, there are four people in that car, Three are dead, one is now on trial, and he apparently is full of shit.
00:02:31
Speaker 3: So it's his word against his word, literally, no, the word. That is what the jurors are going to have to sort through. Davis's own words then versus what Davis is saying now. And one of the arguments that the defense made, I don't know how effective it was, was that their client wasn't charged for any of what he said during that time period because he said a lot actually shortly after the murders, and he actually reportedly confessed to police more than once. But they say the reason why he was never charged despite those confessions is because police knew he was full of crap.
00:03:12
Speaker 1: That's according to his own lawyer.
00:03:15
Speaker 3: I actually, I mean when I started reading and listening, I had to like rewind, watch again, reread. Is this actually what the defense is putting on?
00:03:26
Speaker 1: You know everyone, every trial it goes a little we assume defendants aren't going to get on the stand, and then after you get into the case a little bit, a few weeks, the big question remains. And I still wonder and legal experts out there way the options and the possibilities. There's zero chanced he's a liar.
00:03:48
Speaker 3: Well, if he got on the stand, it would be for no reason whatsoever, because he can't be trusted or you line in or do you just lie all the time, which is apparently his defense team is trying to suggest.
00:04:02
Speaker 1: We know that's not happened. But Dwayne Davis, the trial that is underway, he is the only person ever charged in the nineteen ninety six infamous unsolved murder of rap legend Tupac Shakur. Now, the jury is made up robes of ten women and six men, so they got twelve jurors. Four will serve as alternates. I don't know how that helps one way or another in this case, but it's least worth noting. Someone noted that one of the juris is twenty one years old, So Tupac wasn't even alive.
00:04:34
Speaker 3: At any point, and one of the jurors is twenty one years old, and I'm actually surprised they only have eight jurors. That's a fairly small jury pool in terms of wait, eight, Yeah, if you said there's twelve jurors and four alternates, oh, they're sixteen, Okay, I was gonna say.
00:04:51
Speaker 2: I was looking at that as I was like, how are there only eight jurors?
00:04:53
Speaker 3: Okay, there are twelve jurors, but sixteen are seated because four of them are alternates, and they don't know who they are until.
00:05:00
Speaker 2: It comes time to deliberate.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: It's kind of a theme here. Anytime any numbers are involved in our podcasting, it is stot robox thing.
00:05:07
Speaker 2: Don't trust my math.
00:05:08
Speaker 1: This it's a funny thing. It's cute. I know you can add. Everybody knows you can add. It's just it's kind of amazing.
00:05:15
Speaker 2: There's a reason why I got a journalist and degree.
00:05:18
Speaker 1: But Robes you mentioned, and this is the most important part maybe here. Robes is this guy in police interviews, to the federal government, to local police there in Vegas, to podcasters, and also in his book. He has said several times over the years, Robes, he has confessed to the exact thing he's on trial for. This goes back, frankly, where's the day here to nineteen oh to two thousand and eight, at least at least till two thousand and eight, so you're talking twenty years ago. For the most part, he has flat out confessed to this. Not just the book he has confessed, but Robes, they say they have a very good reason why he has not been arrested up to this point, at least up to the book, because those confessions weren't supposed to be used. He had an agreement with authorities who were actually investigating a different crime that they wanted to talk to him about. He said, oh, yeah, I can tell you about this Tupac thing. So they offered it. He offered it up. But the agreement he had made they call a proffer agreement, meant that we are making a deal that it doesn't matter what you tell us in this interrogation, it cannot be used against you later.
00:06:36
Speaker 2: In a court of laws.
00:06:37
Speaker 1: So he's had that deal for twenty years. So Robes, what the hell changed all of a sudden and a judge now says, oh, yeah, that's fair game.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you did interviews, because you actually went out and started talking about it, and then you wrote about it in your twenty nineteen memoir Compton Street Legend.
00:07:00
Speaker 2: And so I'm just shocked.
00:07:02
Speaker 3: Did he actually believe that because he had that profer agreement, that somehow that gave him a lifetime of immunity from acknowledging being involved in one of the most unsolved murder mysteries, at least in a certain I mean, this is one of the biggest murders in this country's history, at least in the past few decades. I mean, this has been something that of legend people talk about this all the time.
00:07:31
Speaker 2: No one's been held accountable.
00:07:33
Speaker 3: So did he actually think that somehow he would just get away with it.
00:07:38
Speaker 1: The answer must be yes, because he got away with it for so long. I guess it was a decade between him confessing to the FBI and that book. Maybe he did get confident Robes. It makes no sense why someone who quite frankly Robe two things, one got away with murder for thirty years, one of the most infamous, high profile and again ropes. He got murder in Vegas. This wasn't some back alley so long on the strip. He got murder after a tyson fight. Uh, that's a lot of witnesses. Okay, So this is an infamous crime that he got away with legally speaking, why would you then open your mouth? That's one but two Robes. This was a East coast West coast gang back and forth that led to people dying. No one has retaliated against him in thirty years. He's still walking around. Dude, go home, sit down. Why would he do this? I don't know.
00:08:36
Speaker 3: You know what it has to be for the reason that the defense is offering for money, but they're claiming he lied for the money. But The reality is maybe he just saw dollar signs, he had a book publisher, he had someone convince him, hey, you can make a ton of money if you write a book. I mean, that's the only thing that makes sense. Or bragging rights, and he got so bold to believe he was untouchable, and so yeah, he felt like a badass and he got some money out of it.
00:09:04
Speaker 1: See here's the thing. Then, why did he tell police that in two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine, before any book, before any deal, before anything. Why was he sitting in private and making a deal and talking about this stuff. See that doesn't make sense. How did it benefit him in that?
00:09:21
Speaker 2: Maybe he just has loose lips.
00:09:23
Speaker 3: Maybe some people just cannot hold a secret, even one that might send them to prison. I mean, some people just like to talk, and they like to talk about themselves, and they like to talk about what they did.
00:09:35
Speaker 1: Well, talking about yourself has got you a trial right now for a murder that you might have gotten away with otherwise. There were a few interesting details that did come out, and these are things I did not know before this and we have all followed this case quite closely over the years. But Robes one thing we'll go to the one of the ambulance. Well, the witnesses yesterday several witnesses. Three of them were former police officers and investigators who dealt with the investigation. Another was a witness who happened to be in a car that was in front of Tupac that night, but one of the officer's robes. Invest or justified he was in the ambulance with Tupac. I had not heard this before.
00:10:18
Speaker 3: This was I said this to you. I was like, WHOA. I am so shocked. I had no idea. I knew Tupac didn't die immediately, that he died later in the hospital, but I didn't yeah, six days later. I didn't realize he was in good enough condition to actually have a conversation with the officer after he had been shot what was it four times? And so yes, the police officer in the ambulance with him is asking him who shot him?
00:10:45
Speaker 2: Who shot you?
00:10:46
Speaker 3: Mister secure shook her and Tupac said this to him, Nah, we'll take care of it.
00:10:53
Speaker 1: I'd never heard that detail before then. I'm not checking, baby, that's a detail that has been out there missed, but that is something to hear that Tupac was well enough, okay, enough coherent enough to respond in that way to that question. That's remarkable. But yeah, it was almost a week ropes later that he passed away. The other thing came out that was interesting from hearing that night, also having to do with Tupac and Sugar in that car they got pulled over, Yeah, earlier in the evening, Like.
00:11:24
Speaker 3: Just didn't know that at all, and to hear the police officer testify that, I know he had just pulled them over because they didn't have a license plate on the back and had let them go. And then ten minutes later gets the call that shots have been fired and that Tupac and Shug Night have now both been hit by bullets, and how shocking that was to him knowing he had just pulled them over moments earlier.
00:11:48
Speaker 1: I'd never heard that before, but he said he had a pleasant interaction with him, said the license plate was off because they were shooting a video music video and the car was being used, and just had them put it back on and they went on about their marriage. I had no idea that adds some type of normal seat to the evening. It almost speaks to their move there's that surveillance video of Tupac involved in an altercation in a fight with another from earlier in the evening. And then I'm hearing from a police officer. He was a nice, good citizen, good evening officer, and it was just a.
00:12:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, calm, cool collective about to head off to a club. Had some ladies in front of him that they were going to be meeting up with at the club. So yeah, everything was just going into a fun night.
00:12:30
Speaker 1: The other detail robes again and very bizarre one from Dwayne Davis. How they explained this detail came out that Davis was in the front seat of the car passenger seat, there's a driver, and then in the back seat you got two guys and one of them, Dre Smith, is in the back seat behind the driver's seat. Correct, this would have been on the side where Tupac's car would have pulled up. Dre was supposed to do the shooting. Apparently, Dre chickened out and did not shoot and refused to fire when the time came. So the other guy in the backseat, Orlando Davis, is the one that took the gun aft.
00:13:17
Speaker 3: And that is Dwayne Davis's nephew who was beaten up a few hours earlier by Tupac and shook Night and Crew, and so he had gotten kicked and banged around a bit, and so he was the one who actually they were exacting revenge for. So according to Davis, he is the one who ultimately pulled the trigger.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: But ultimately was not supposed to pull the trigger. No, it'said very Look, thirty years, this has been one of those mysteries. Look Tupac, Biggie rap icons, rap legends. Neither one of those crimes ever been solved, neither one. No one has been held accountable for those murders. This is a first after thirty years, and to be learning things for the first time is really really interesting. And something happened in court yesterday that we don't see often. It wasn't just the lawyers asking the questions. Stay here will tell you about a interesting Nevada law that allows the jurors to get involved.
00:14:23
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ.
00:14:25
Speaker 3: We are talking about the first day of testimony opening statements in the Tupac Shucker murder trial. Of course, Dwayne Davis is on trial thirty years after the murder, and his own words written and spoken are the main evidence in this case. So yeah, we're going to see a really well, I would say, a trial like we've never seen before where the only defense is to call the defendant an absolute liar.
00:14:58
Speaker 2: That is where we are.
00:15:00
Speaker 1: This is only option, and that's I'm you had to have to look twelve people in the face and say, trust me, I'm lying.
00:15:09
Speaker 3: I mean, that's actually what's happening. And already it's been pretty interesting. You tease this before we went to the break but in and we just looked this up. In most states, it's legally allowed for jurors to ask questions via written questions basically to witnesses, but it's up to the discretion of the judge to allow it or not. And in this case, in this trial, and we haven't seen this very often at all. I think in only one other trial that I can recall where a judge has allowed a duror or jurors to submit written questions to witnesses, and that occurred.
00:15:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had a couple yesterday. We have one in here. We can at least tell you. But I don't know how I feel about that practice. It seems like it could slow things get down if you got durors that were really really engaged. But it's just you don't see it a lot. Every once in a while, but it's really really rare, And I don't know, I don't mind them being active participants in the tribal Yeah.
00:16:10
Speaker 3: I actually think showing curiosity from the jurors about what witness testimony like if they want to follow up and they didn't get it. I actually think that's important if someone's life is on the line, if their freedom is on the line. And look, we've talked often about prosecutors. Sometimes attorneys don't realize that where they're going with their questioning isn't necessarily making sense or landing with the jury. And I do think if they have an important question, they should be allowed to ask it through the judge's discretion. I think that makes a lot of sense, and I think that would only lead to more just outcomes.
00:16:49
Speaker 1: I was just thinking as you were saying that I would like to ask questions of the lawyers. Is that allowed?
00:16:57
Speaker 2: Why didn't you ask this? Why did you ask it?
00:16:59
Speaker 3: With that, you know, you're just upsetting the jurors and badgering the witness.
00:17:04
Speaker 1: Right, All of my questions will begin with, so what you're saying.
00:17:08
Speaker 2: Is land your plane?
00:17:12
Speaker 3: Uh?
00:17:13
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:17:13
Speaker 3: But the question, the one that really stood out was can you gauge what direction the shots were coming from? Trying to determine if, in fact the car that Dwayne Davis was in was where those shots originated from.
00:17:28
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know that just showed I wasn't as interested in the answer I was. I just showed how engaged they were, what they were curious about with I don't know, I'd love to hear this, but it is. We have to take a moment here. This is a part of pop culture history. This is a part of certainly rapped and hip hop history. What music history? Here, Brobes this is Yesterday was day one of testimony the trial of somebody finally being held accountable for killing Tupac thirty years ago. That was a very big day and this is a very big deal.
00:18:04
Speaker 3: It was and I thought I actually got to actually catch Ingrid Stokes, who was one of the witnesses in the car in front of Tupac.
00:18:10
Speaker 2: She was with a group of.
00:18:11
Speaker 3: Girls who were going to be meeting them at the club after the fight, and I just thought it was interesting as she was asked about what was going through her mind, and did they want to help or were they looking? She was like, we were getting the hell out of there. We heard shots fired. We wanted to get as far away from the scene as possible. I appreciated that because they were trying to find out, you know, what they did, what they thought, what they saw. She's like, yeah, we didn't want to be anywhere near that scene once shots rang out.
00:18:43
Speaker 2: I thought that was pretty funny.
00:18:44
Speaker 1: You know what thirty years ago, that's the right reaction these days was somebody do pull out their phone.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: Right right, record right? Yeah.
00:18:51
Speaker 3: I think her quote was, well, the prosecutors asked them if they were in pursuit of the white car, the car that Davis was in. That who asked this prosecutor and she said, hell, no, we were trying.
00:19:03
Speaker 2: To get away.
00:19:04
Speaker 3: That just made you that question, I guess she asked her what she asked if they went to pursue the car the Davis where the shots came from, Like as if these women who just wanted to hang out with Tupac and shook night, we're going to like go in hot pursuit of the assailants of the gunmen who just shot down the guys that they were about to hang out with.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: She was like, are you crazy, basically to the prosecutor.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: We need to stop the episode.
00:19:32
Speaker 3: We were trying to get away the difference between us. Yes, I know exactly where you're going with that, but I wanted to include that because I laughed out loud, knowing our conversations about how people react.
00:19:45
Speaker 1: And that's the right response. But yes, this one is being live streamed. You can see this one. This one is I want to watch. I've seen four weeks is the estimate on this one.
00:19:58
Speaker 3: Yes, they've said about a month. One more question for you. So this was also something else because I loved this witness ingrid She was also asked by prosecutors why she had fear about speaking out about what happened that night, about what she saw, about what she witnessed, and about the events leading up to it. And this is what she said to the courtroom on Mike under oath, snitches get stitches.
00:20:22
Speaker 2: But I didn't see anything.
00:20:24
Speaker 3: And I say that, and I was gonna ask that flies in the face of everything that came from Dwayne.
00:20:33
Speaker 2: Davis. And it's the whole reason why he's on trial. He snitched on himself.
00:20:39
Speaker 3: That is a confusing, confusing thing to do. Given, Yeah, that snitches get stitches mantra among you hear that mob gang related violence. That's that's just kind of the mantra. So it's just bizarre to me that he snitched on himself.
00:20:57
Speaker 1: Well, that is why I guess there are no repercussions, perhaps no retaliation. Perhaps nobody came after him because nobody can. He's not going to come out and if all those three guys were alive still and write a book blaming all those guys, naming the shooter, you obviously could not do that. But he is the only one left. Snitching requires you to to reveal information that leads to police arresting and convicting your ass. That is, you cooperating with the authorities in some way. He's cooperating with him in order to throw himself in jail. This is a bizarre, you know, it's bizarre that someone who is being accused of something that's stupid could have pulled off a murder that couldn't be solved for thirty years.
00:21:58
Speaker 3: Yes, unpack that. That's what's happening in the courtroom right now. It's fascinating to watch. We'll of course stay on top of all of the developments, but we always appreciate you listening to us.
00:22:08
Speaker 2: I made me robock alongside TJ.
00:22:10
Speaker 3: Holmes.
00:22:11
Speaker 2: We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Tuesday, August eighteenth, and Test demony is officially underway in the Tupac trial, and we are getting a look at the defense strategy, and the strategy is don't believe anything the defendant says. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Roobes. This is an interesting strategy. It might be the only one that got it.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: You can't make it up.
00:00:28
Speaker 3: And yet they really don't have anywhere else to go when it comes to defending Dwayne Davis, because Dwayne Davis has provided and supplied the prosecution with pretty much all of their evidence, and so what.
00:00:44
Speaker 2: Do you do?
00:00:46
Speaker 1: So opening statements were something to see and it was remarkable. Robes. Yes, I guess we knew ahead of time, but they made clear. The prosecution says this act was done and he was a part of this and the role he played. They did it as an act of revenge. But the defense got up Robes and they are presenting to the jurors that every police interview, every podcast interview, every book he wrote, every quote from the defendant out there taking responsibility for orchestrating this and also providing the gun in this nineteen ninety six killing. He was all just doing it robes to embellish. He was flossing on all of us, essentially, just bragging about it, and it was just make belief.
00:01:34
Speaker 3: Or you could just use one word to sum up Dwayne Davis, according to his lawyer, who actually put up on a large monitor a slide that had a single word never seen this before in court bullshit.
00:01:50
Speaker 1: Yes, not the prosecution's case. By the way, that's not what he's saying. His client is full of He's it was remarkable. You can't believe anything this dude is saying. He is a liar. He don't believe him, and that is the defense strategy because rose it's kind of a solid one. There are not a lot of witnesses left. Well, excuse me, he's the only really witness left. Look Suge Knight was there. He's still alive, but he's in prison. But as far as the assailants involved in this, there are four people in that car, Three are dead, one is now on trial, and he apparently is full of shit.
00:02:31
Speaker 3: So it's his word against his word, literally, no, the word. That is what the jurors are going to have to sort through. Davis's own words then versus what Davis is saying now. And one of the arguments that the defense made, I don't know how effective it was, was that their client wasn't charged for any of what he said during that time period because he said a lot actually shortly after the murders, and he actually reportedly confessed to police more than once. But they say the reason why he was never charged despite those confessions is because police knew he was full of crap.
00:03:12
Speaker 1: That's according to his own lawyer.
00:03:15
Speaker 3: I actually, I mean when I started reading and listening, I had to like rewind, watch again, reread. Is this actually what the defense is putting on?
00:03:26
Speaker 1: You know everyone, every trial it goes a little we assume defendants aren't going to get on the stand, and then after you get into the case a little bit, a few weeks, the big question remains. And I still wonder and legal experts out there way the options and the possibilities. There's zero chanced he's a liar.
00:03:48
Speaker 3: Well, if he got on the stand, it would be for no reason whatsoever, because he can't be trusted or you line in or do you just lie all the time, which is apparently his defense team is trying to suggest.
00:04:02
Speaker 1: We know that's not happened. But Dwayne Davis, the trial that is underway, he is the only person ever charged in the nineteen ninety six infamous unsolved murder of rap legend Tupac Shakur. Now, the jury is made up robes of ten women and six men, so they got twelve jurors. Four will serve as alternates. I don't know how that helps one way or another in this case, but it's least worth noting. Someone noted that one of the juris is twenty one years old, So Tupac wasn't even alive.
00:04:34
Speaker 3: At any point, and one of the jurors is twenty one years old, and I'm actually surprised they only have eight jurors. That's a fairly small jury pool in terms of wait, eight, Yeah, if you said there's twelve jurors and four alternates, oh, they're sixteen, Okay, I was gonna say.
00:04:51
Speaker 2: I was looking at that as I was like, how are there only eight jurors?
00:04:53
Speaker 3: Okay, there are twelve jurors, but sixteen are seated because four of them are alternates, and they don't know who they are until.
00:05:00
Speaker 2: It comes time to deliberate.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: It's kind of a theme here. Anytime any numbers are involved in our podcasting, it is stot robox thing.
00:05:07
Speaker 2: Don't trust my math.
00:05:08
Speaker 1: This it's a funny thing. It's cute. I know you can add. Everybody knows you can add. It's just it's kind of amazing.
00:05:15
Speaker 2: There's a reason why I got a journalist and degree.
00:05:18
Speaker 1: But Robes you mentioned, and this is the most important part maybe here. Robes is this guy in police interviews, to the federal government, to local police there in Vegas, to podcasters, and also in his book. He has said several times over the years, Robes, he has confessed to the exact thing he's on trial for. This goes back, frankly, where's the day here to nineteen oh to two thousand and eight, at least at least till two thousand and eight, so you're talking twenty years ago. For the most part, he has flat out confessed to this. Not just the book he has confessed, but Robes, they say they have a very good reason why he has not been arrested up to this point, at least up to the book, because those confessions weren't supposed to be used. He had an agreement with authorities who were actually investigating a different crime that they wanted to talk to him about. He said, oh, yeah, I can tell you about this Tupac thing. So they offered it. He offered it up. But the agreement he had made they call a proffer agreement, meant that we are making a deal that it doesn't matter what you tell us in this interrogation, it cannot be used against you later.
00:06:36
Speaker 2: In a court of laws.
00:06:37
Speaker 1: So he's had that deal for twenty years. So Robes, what the hell changed all of a sudden and a judge now says, oh, yeah, that's fair game.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you did interviews, because you actually went out and started talking about it, and then you wrote about it in your twenty nineteen memoir Compton Street Legend.
00:07:00
Speaker 2: And so I'm just shocked.
00:07:02
Speaker 3: Did he actually believe that because he had that profer agreement, that somehow that gave him a lifetime of immunity from acknowledging being involved in one of the most unsolved murder mysteries, at least in a certain I mean, this is one of the biggest murders in this country's history, at least in the past few decades. I mean, this has been something that of legend people talk about this all the time.
00:07:31
Speaker 2: No one's been held accountable.
00:07:33
Speaker 3: So did he actually think that somehow he would just get away with it.
00:07:38
Speaker 1: The answer must be yes, because he got away with it for so long. I guess it was a decade between him confessing to the FBI and that book. Maybe he did get confident Robes. It makes no sense why someone who quite frankly Robe two things, one got away with murder for thirty years, one of the most infamous, high profile and again ropes. He got murder in Vegas. This wasn't some back alley so long on the strip. He got murder after a tyson fight. Uh, that's a lot of witnesses. Okay, So this is an infamous crime that he got away with legally speaking, why would you then open your mouth? That's one but two Robes. This was a East coast West coast gang back and forth that led to people dying. No one has retaliated against him in thirty years. He's still walking around. Dude, go home, sit down. Why would he do this? I don't know.
00:08:36
Speaker 3: You know what it has to be for the reason that the defense is offering for money, but they're claiming he lied for the money. But The reality is maybe he just saw dollar signs, he had a book publisher, he had someone convince him, hey, you can make a ton of money if you write a book. I mean, that's the only thing that makes sense. Or bragging rights, and he got so bold to believe he was untouchable, and so yeah, he felt like a badass and he got some money out of it.
00:09:04
Speaker 1: See here's the thing. Then, why did he tell police that in two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine, before any book, before any deal, before anything. Why was he sitting in private and making a deal and talking about this stuff. See that doesn't make sense. How did it benefit him in that?
00:09:21
Speaker 2: Maybe he just has loose lips.
00:09:23
Speaker 3: Maybe some people just cannot hold a secret, even one that might send them to prison. I mean, some people just like to talk, and they like to talk about themselves, and they like to talk about what they did.
00:09:35
Speaker 1: Well, talking about yourself has got you a trial right now for a murder that you might have gotten away with otherwise. There were a few interesting details that did come out, and these are things I did not know before this and we have all followed this case quite closely over the years. But Robes one thing we'll go to the one of the ambulance. Well, the witnesses yesterday several witnesses. Three of them were former police officers and investigators who dealt with the investigation. Another was a witness who happened to be in a car that was in front of Tupac that night, but one of the officer's robes. Invest or justified he was in the ambulance with Tupac. I had not heard this before.
00:10:18
Speaker 3: This was I said this to you. I was like, WHOA. I am so shocked. I had no idea. I knew Tupac didn't die immediately, that he died later in the hospital, but I didn't yeah, six days later. I didn't realize he was in good enough condition to actually have a conversation with the officer after he had been shot what was it four times? And so yes, the police officer in the ambulance with him is asking him who shot him?
00:10:45
Speaker 2: Who shot you?
00:10:46
Speaker 3: Mister secure shook her and Tupac said this to him, Nah, we'll take care of it.
00:10:53
Speaker 1: I'd never heard that detail before then. I'm not checking, baby, that's a detail that has been out there missed, but that is something to hear that Tupac was well enough, okay, enough coherent enough to respond in that way to that question. That's remarkable. But yeah, it was almost a week ropes later that he passed away. The other thing came out that was interesting from hearing that night, also having to do with Tupac and Sugar in that car they got pulled over, Yeah, earlier in the evening, Like.
00:11:24
Speaker 3: Just didn't know that at all, and to hear the police officer testify that, I know he had just pulled them over because they didn't have a license plate on the back and had let them go. And then ten minutes later gets the call that shots have been fired and that Tupac and Shug Night have now both been hit by bullets, and how shocking that was to him knowing he had just pulled them over moments earlier.
00:11:48
Speaker 1: I'd never heard that before, but he said he had a pleasant interaction with him, said the license plate was off because they were shooting a video music video and the car was being used, and just had them put it back on and they went on about their marriage. I had no idea that adds some type of normal seat to the evening. It almost speaks to their move there's that surveillance video of Tupac involved in an altercation in a fight with another from earlier in the evening. And then I'm hearing from a police officer. He was a nice, good citizen, good evening officer, and it was just a.
00:12:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, calm, cool collective about to head off to a club. Had some ladies in front of him that they were going to be meeting up with at the club. So yeah, everything was just going into a fun night.
00:12:30
Speaker 1: The other detail robes again and very bizarre one from Dwayne Davis. How they explained this detail came out that Davis was in the front seat of the car passenger seat, there's a driver, and then in the back seat you got two guys and one of them, Dre Smith, is in the back seat behind the driver's seat. Correct, this would have been on the side where Tupac's car would have pulled up. Dre was supposed to do the shooting. Apparently, Dre chickened out and did not shoot and refused to fire when the time came. So the other guy in the backseat, Orlando Davis, is the one that took the gun aft.
00:13:17
Speaker 3: And that is Dwayne Davis's nephew who was beaten up a few hours earlier by Tupac and shook Night and Crew, and so he had gotten kicked and banged around a bit, and so he was the one who actually they were exacting revenge for. So according to Davis, he is the one who ultimately pulled the trigger.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: But ultimately was not supposed to pull the trigger. No, it'said very Look, thirty years, this has been one of those mysteries. Look Tupac, Biggie rap icons, rap legends. Neither one of those crimes ever been solved, neither one. No one has been held accountable for those murders. This is a first after thirty years, and to be learning things for the first time is really really interesting. And something happened in court yesterday that we don't see often. It wasn't just the lawyers asking the questions. Stay here will tell you about a interesting Nevada law that allows the jurors to get involved.
00:14:23
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ.
00:14:25
Speaker 3: We are talking about the first day of testimony opening statements in the Tupac Shucker murder trial. Of course, Dwayne Davis is on trial thirty years after the murder, and his own words written and spoken are the main evidence in this case. So yeah, we're going to see a really well, I would say, a trial like we've never seen before where the only defense is to call the defendant an absolute liar.
00:14:58
Speaker 2: That is where we are.
00:15:00
Speaker 1: This is only option, and that's I'm you had to have to look twelve people in the face and say, trust me, I'm lying.
00:15:09
Speaker 3: I mean, that's actually what's happening. And already it's been pretty interesting. You tease this before we went to the break but in and we just looked this up. In most states, it's legally allowed for jurors to ask questions via written questions basically to witnesses, but it's up to the discretion of the judge to allow it or not. And in this case, in this trial, and we haven't seen this very often at all. I think in only one other trial that I can recall where a judge has allowed a duror or jurors to submit written questions to witnesses, and that occurred.
00:15:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had a couple yesterday. We have one in here. We can at least tell you. But I don't know how I feel about that practice. It seems like it could slow things get down if you got durors that were really really engaged. But it's just you don't see it a lot. Every once in a while, but it's really really rare, And I don't know, I don't mind them being active participants in the tribal Yeah.
00:16:10
Speaker 3: I actually think showing curiosity from the jurors about what witness testimony like if they want to follow up and they didn't get it. I actually think that's important if someone's life is on the line, if their freedom is on the line. And look, we've talked often about prosecutors. Sometimes attorneys don't realize that where they're going with their questioning isn't necessarily making sense or landing with the jury. And I do think if they have an important question, they should be allowed to ask it through the judge's discretion. I think that makes a lot of sense, and I think that would only lead to more just outcomes.
00:16:49
Speaker 1: I was just thinking as you were saying that I would like to ask questions of the lawyers. Is that allowed?
00:16:57
Speaker 2: Why didn't you ask this? Why did you ask it?
00:16:59
Speaker 3: With that, you know, you're just upsetting the jurors and badgering the witness.
00:17:04
Speaker 1: Right, All of my questions will begin with, so what you're saying.
00:17:08
Speaker 2: Is land your plane?
00:17:12
Speaker 3: Uh?
00:17:13
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:17:13
Speaker 3: But the question, the one that really stood out was can you gauge what direction the shots were coming from? Trying to determine if, in fact the car that Dwayne Davis was in was where those shots originated from.
00:17:28
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know that just showed I wasn't as interested in the answer I was. I just showed how engaged they were, what they were curious about with I don't know, I'd love to hear this, but it is. We have to take a moment here. This is a part of pop culture history. This is a part of certainly rapped and hip hop history. What music history? Here, Brobes this is Yesterday was day one of testimony the trial of somebody finally being held accountable for killing Tupac thirty years ago. That was a very big day and this is a very big deal.
00:18:04
Speaker 3: It was and I thought I actually got to actually catch Ingrid Stokes, who was one of the witnesses in the car in front of Tupac.
00:18:10
Speaker 2: She was with a group of.
00:18:11
Speaker 3: Girls who were going to be meeting them at the club after the fight, and I just thought it was interesting as she was asked about what was going through her mind, and did they want to help or were they looking? She was like, we were getting the hell out of there. We heard shots fired. We wanted to get as far away from the scene as possible. I appreciated that because they were trying to find out, you know, what they did, what they thought, what they saw. She's like, yeah, we didn't want to be anywhere near that scene once shots rang out.
00:18:43
Speaker 2: I thought that was pretty funny.
00:18:44
Speaker 1: You know what thirty years ago, that's the right reaction these days was somebody do pull out their phone.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: Right right, record right? Yeah.
00:18:51
Speaker 3: I think her quote was, well, the prosecutors asked them if they were in pursuit of the white car, the car that Davis was in. That who asked this prosecutor and she said, hell, no, we were trying.
00:19:03
Speaker 2: To get away.
00:19:04
Speaker 3: That just made you that question, I guess she asked her what she asked if they went to pursue the car the Davis where the shots came from, Like as if these women who just wanted to hang out with Tupac and shook night, we're going to like go in hot pursuit of the assailants of the gunmen who just shot down the guys that they were about to hang out with.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: She was like, are you crazy, basically to the prosecutor.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: We need to stop the episode.
00:19:32
Speaker 3: We were trying to get away the difference between us. Yes, I know exactly where you're going with that, but I wanted to include that because I laughed out loud, knowing our conversations about how people react.
00:19:45
Speaker 1: And that's the right response. But yes, this one is being live streamed. You can see this one. This one is I want to watch. I've seen four weeks is the estimate on this one.
00:19:58
Speaker 3: Yes, they've said about a month. One more question for you. So this was also something else because I loved this witness ingrid She was also asked by prosecutors why she had fear about speaking out about what happened that night, about what she saw, about what she witnessed, and about the events leading up to it. And this is what she said to the courtroom on Mike under oath, snitches get stitches.
00:20:22
Speaker 2: But I didn't see anything.
00:20:24
Speaker 3: And I say that, and I was gonna ask that flies in the face of everything that came from Dwayne.
00:20:33
Speaker 2: Davis. And it's the whole reason why he's on trial. He snitched on himself.
00:20:39
Speaker 3: That is a confusing, confusing thing to do. Given, Yeah, that snitches get stitches mantra among you hear that mob gang related violence. That's that's just kind of the mantra. So it's just bizarre to me that he snitched on himself.
00:20:57
Speaker 1: Well, that is why I guess there are no repercussions, perhaps no retaliation. Perhaps nobody came after him because nobody can. He's not going to come out and if all those three guys were alive still and write a book blaming all those guys, naming the shooter, you obviously could not do that. But he is the only one left. Snitching requires you to to reveal information that leads to police arresting and convicting your ass. That is, you cooperating with the authorities in some way. He's cooperating with him in order to throw himself in jail. This is a bizarre, you know, it's bizarre that someone who is being accused of something that's stupid could have pulled off a murder that couldn't be solved for thirty years.
00:21:58
Speaker 3: Yes, unpack that. That's what's happening in the courtroom right now. It's fascinating to watch. We'll of course stay on top of all of the developments, but we always appreciate you listening to us.
00:22:08
Speaker 2: I made me robock alongside TJ.
00:22:10
Speaker 3: Holmes.
00:22:11
Speaker 2: We'll talk soon.