One week. That’s how long separated Michael Sanft filing a notice of appeal for Duane “Keffe D” Davis and the moment the Las Vegas defense lawyer was found dead at his home on November 6, 2026.
Sanft was 55. He had just started the next round of a legal fight that hip hop has watched closely since the night Tupac Shakur was shot in Las Vegas back in September 1996.
Authorities haven’t released an official cause or manner of death. Police said the circumstances did not appear suspicious, which should quiet some of the online speculation, though anyone who has followed this case knows how quickly theories spread.
Davis was convicted of first degree murder for his role in Shakur’s killing and sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.
The case reached a verdict nearly three decades after the drive by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip, a murder that went unsolved for so long that many fans assumed it never would be.
Sanft filed the notice of appeal on October 30, formally challenging the conviction. His death now leaves a hard question hanging over everything: who picks up Davis’ defense, and how much does this disrupt the timeline?
What makes the loss sting for Davis’ camp is that Sanft took the case pro bono. That’s not a small commitment for a trial with this level of national attention and this much history attached to it.
After the guilty verdict, Sanft said he was disappointed with the jury. He was also firm that he wouldn’t have changed his approach, and he believed his team had done everything they could at trial.
Davis apparently saw it a little differently, or at least with a longer view. According to reports, he reminded his attorney that the verdict was only the first phase of the battle. That line reads very differently now.
Outside the Tupac case, Sanft was a familiar name in Nevada courtrooms. He reportedly took more than 150 cases before juries, and he also represented former Nevada politician Michele Fiore during her federal fraud trial.
Still, it was Keffe D who put him in front of a national audience. Davis had long been a figure fans knew from his own public accounts of that night, which made the prosecution unusual from the start and kept the trial in headlines throughout.
For Sanft’s family, this is a personal loss before it’s anything else. He leaves behind two children, and colleagues in the Nevada legal community are mourning one of their more experienced trial lawyers.
For Davis, the practical reality is that his appeal now sits without the attorney who built his defense.
Whoever steps in will be inheriting a case file that took decades to reach a courtroom and a client who has made it clear he isn’t done fighting.
