Why did the wheels of justice turn so slowly for rapper Tupac Shakur?

Tupac Shakur was shot in a drive-by shooting on September 7, 1996.

He was seated in a black BMW alongside Death Row Records co-founder Marion "Suge" Knight, who was injured.

On September 13, Shakur died at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas.

He was 25.

Almost 30 years later, Duane "Keffe D" Davis was convicted of a single count of murder with a deadly weapon.

The former gang leader could be sentenced to life in prison.

He's indicated he'll appeal.

While Davis wasn't accused of firing the fatal shots, prosecutors argued he orchestrated the attack and provided the weapon used to kill Shakur.

They used his own accounts against him, including interviews with investigators, media and social media interviews, documentaries and Davis's 2019 memoir Compton Street Legend, in which he places himself in the white Cadillac from which the shots were fired.

His defence tried to paint him as a liar, arguing his stories were exaggerated or fabricated for money and notoriety.

Davis continued doing interviews after his arrest from his jail cell, insisting he was innocent and saying his book was ghostwritten.

But as Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson put it after a jury took less than three hours to deliberate before coming up with the guilty verdict: "The strength of our case was Mr Davis … and his mouth."

Hours before Shakur was shot, he was captured on surveillance video with members of his entourage beating Davis's nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson inside the MGM Grand after a Mike Tyson fight.

Prosecutors said Davis then obtained a gun, gathered a group that included Anderson (who died in 1998 in an unrelated gang shooting), and went looking for Shakur and Knight.

Under Nevada law, if a person helps someone commit murder, they can be held criminally responsible.

So, after word of mouth, a confession, a book, and multiple interviews, why did it take so long for a conviction in Shakur's killing?

Delay after delay

Practising attorney and legal contributor to ABC America Brian Buckmire said there were a number of reasons for the decades of delays, as well as delays to the trial itself.

"If we're talking about the decades of delays, between not having the information, people not reporting crimes, corruption within law enforcement, investigations just falling apart, there are a number of reasons that we saw in this trial as to why it took this many years," Mr Buckmire said.

"But in regards to the indictment and getting up to the case, there are a number of delays in terms of just evidentiary issues … and admissibility issues.

"A lot of this case had to do with whether or not Keffe D's own words could be used against him."

In 2008, Davis was protected by a proffer agreement when interviewed by federal investigators.

Under such an agreement, informants can speak without fear of legal reprisal.

But his conviction took what he said under that proffer agreement into account, as well as what was written in his book, and what he said in the various interviews he participated in.

"What the court did here is, in an argument presented by the prosecution, it came to the conclusion that if you have a proffer agreement, and then you do interviews afterwards, you basically don't have the protections of the proffer agreement because you're giving that information freely," Mr Buckmire said.

"The court basically said, because you've said the story in so many other places, there's no expectation of privacy or no reason to believe that the proffer agreement should still exist.

"So, the judge said that for that reason, the proffer agreement can be used against you, as well as interviews, as well as your book."

Mr Buckmire said there were many types of evidence used to prove a person carried out a crime, but the best evidence to convict someone was their own words, and that's what happened in this case.

"Keffe D over and over and over and over again ratted on himself,"Mr Buckmire said.

"And he did so with such specificity in those stories that one could have only come to the conclusion that he's telling the truth."

A pop culture icon

Tupac Amaru Shakur was a pop culture icon who sold more than 75 million records.

His hits included California Love featuring Dr Dre, 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted featuring Snoop Dogg, and Changes, released posthumously.

He was an actor who starred in cult favourite films such as Juice, Above the Rim and Poetic Justice opposite Janet Jackson.

Shakur's mother, Afeni Shakur, was a prominent leader of the Black Panther Party.

Shakur also served eight months in prison in 1995 for a sexual assault, which he denied.

His death is forever intertwined with an East Coast-West Coast rivalry and the murder of fellow rap star Christopher Wallace, whose stage name was The Notorious BIG, known as Biggie, who was killed six months later.

Mr Buckmire said part of the reason Shakur's case took so long to be heard was that it was mishandled.

"We are currently thinking of Tupac nostalgically,"Mr Buckmire said.

"But like most controversial figures at the time in which they were controversial, there was an entire group of people who greatly disliked them.

"I would imagine that some of those people would be in law enforcement.

"Tupac spoke about his community and their engagement and interaction with law enforcement not in a positive way. It was in, by and large, a negative way.

"And I can imagine law enforcement having a negative reaction to him."

Rapper and associate professor of Hip Hop and the Global South at the University of Virginia, AD Carson, said the levers of justice over the course of Shakur's career seemed to work against him.

"It seems difficult to assume that justice on his behalf was going to be as vociferous as justice against him,"Dr Carson said.

"If you've got people out here talking openly, and publishing, and doing interviews and all of these things about this case that you say is a cold case, I think that it makes your police department, it makes your justice system, into a laughing stock.

"It makes it comedic in ways that are absolutely offensive to the word justice.

"Justice on behalf of Black folks in this country, celebrity or not, is not something that's guaranteed."

Dr Carson said at this point, the mythology of Shakur was much bigger than Shakur, the person.

"He seems to have been one of the figures who ushered in the pay-off for there always being a camera there to capture these unscripted moments to such a degree that there are entire facets of media that are focused on just pointing the camera at people and seeing the drama that unfolds," Dr Carson said.

"But I also think that it's incredibly important for us to remember that Tupac was a son, a brother, a community member.

"A person who other people loved, and who loved people in the world, and found that one of the best ways for him to engage in that love of those people was to continue to make music, was to be committed to his politics, was to speak on what he saw as injustices.

"But then to also show himself as a person who cannot be made to cower in the face of whatever circumstances might present themselves.

"And so, I think that he, the person, was an example of the strength and frailties of what it means to be human, Black, male, in the United States, in the early to mid-90s, as a celebrity."