Lawyer who defended Tupac's convicted killer found dead days after filing appeal

Michael Sanft, the lawyer who represented Duane 'Keffe D' Davis at a recent trial where he was found guilty of murdering Tupac Shakur, has been found dead at his home in Las Vegas.

Clark County coroner’s office have not yet released a cause of death but the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that police are saying the death is not being treated as suspicious.

The lawyer was 55 years of age when he was found dead.

One of Davis' prosecutors spoke yesterday (6 November) about Sanft, praising him even though they had been on opposite sides of the trial.

"Michael Sanft was one of the premier defense attorneys in Las Vegas, and Las Vegas lost a good lawyer and more importantly to me, I lost a friend," prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo said.

Michael Sanft, who represented Duane Davis during his trial for murdering Tupac, was found dead in his Las Vegas home at the age of 55 (Bizuayehu TESFAYE / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

During the Keffe D trial, Sanft had tried to call the prosecution into question but was ultimately unsuccessful as there was a guilty verdict handed down which saw a 40 year prison sentence imposed.

Speaking during the trial on the subject of recordings which appeared to contain certain admissions from his client, the lawyer had tried to criticise the prosecution's use of them.

He'd said: “Here’s the thing at the end of the day, when the state of Nevada has to rely on that kind of information to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt, they’ve got a huge problem."

"And I’ve seen the state before, they’ll listen to the phone calls, but it’s sort of like, ‘Nah, we don’t care. We don’t need them'."

However, he also criticised his own client for writing a book containing certain claims about Tupac's death and doing a series of interviews where he talked about it.

Prosecutors praised him as 'one of the premier defense attorneys in Las Vegas' (STEVE MARCUS / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

"Do I agree with him writing the book and doing all these interviews? No," he said.

"Keefe knows that I’m in his corner.

"I have a personal pride issue here because I want to win this case too and I want to do the best job for Keefe that I can."

In the end a jury found the weight of evidence against Davis too much to bear and found him guilty of murdering Tupac in 1996 in a drive-by shooting.

Prosecutors argued that Davis had not fired the shots that killed the rapper but was involved and the mastermind behind the murder.

While Davis had indicated that he would appeal the verdict he will have a different lawyer representing him following the death of Michael Sanft.