The verdict, reached after less than three hours of deliberation, closes a case that has haunted hip-hop culture for three decades. Shakur's relatives held hands and some were seen hugging and crying as the court delivered its decision. Outside the courthouse, friends and family celebrated.
Prosecutors argued that Davis masterminded the shooting as retaliation for an earlier fight between his nephew, Orlando Anderson, and Shakur's entourage at a Las Vegas casino on September 7, 1996. According to evidence presented at trial, Davis was in the front passenger seat of a white Cadillac from which shots were fired. He supplied the gun but did not pull the trigger himself; under Nevada law, someone can be charged with murder even if they did not fire the fatal shot.
Davis had long been a suspect in the case, but police lacked sufficient evidence to charge him until he went public with his account in media appearances and a memoir. Those statements, along with tapes of his secret meetings with investigators, formed the backbone of the prosecution's case. During a 2008 police interview played in court, Davis admitted being in the car from which shots were fired but said he did not fire the weapon.
The defense argued that Davis's words were mere bravado and could not be corroborated by other evidence. The three other men inside the Cadillac that night have since died, and prosecutors did not name the shooter, though Anderson – who died in an unrelated 2008 shooting – has long been suspected.
Davis, a former leader of the Southside Compton Crips, was tried for a crime that took place during the height of the East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry. Shakur, signed to Death Row Records, was associated with the Mob Piru gang, a rival of the Crips. The killing became a defining moment in hip-hop history, symbolising the violent image of "gangsta" rap in the 1990s.