Michael Sanft, the defense lawyer who represented Duane “Keffe D” Davis in the Tupac Shakur murder trial, died in Las Vegas at 55. The Clark County Coroner’s Office confirmed the death on Friday after FOX5 reported Thursday night that Sanft had died.
The death lands in the middle of a case that was still moving toward appeal. Sanft represented Davis pro bono in Las Vegas, and a jury found Davis guilty in August. A notice of appeal was filed on Friday, October 30, court records show, meaning the legal fight Sanft was part of was already headed to the next stage when he died.
Sanft was not just another name on the defense side. He was the lead trial attorney at SOS Injury Lawyers, said he tried over 150 cases to jury verdict, and had argued before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. He also moved to San Diego at 12 and later attended BYU-Hawaii, details that framed a lawyer who built his career far from the case that made him a familiar figure in Las Vegas courtroom circles.
What makes his comments after the verdict harder to read now is how little regret he said he carried about the work itself. Sanft said he would not have done anything differently, even while adding that he was very disappointed in the jury and upset with the verdict. He said, “I don’t see what I could’ve done differently,” and described the team around him as the best possible, from motion practice on the appeal to the investigator and the firm at SOS Injury.
He also captured the mood in the courtroom after the verdict in a way that now feels like an epilogue to his own role in the case. “We were just sitting there taking in the moment,” he said. Davis, he added, told him not to worry because “this is the first phase.” Sanft repeated that point in his own words: “Mr. Davis was the one who said, don’t worry about it, man, this is the first phase, and I said, I understand, I hate to lose.”
The coroner has not released a cause or manner of death, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department referred questions to that office. For the defense team, the immediate question is not the verdict anymore but the appeal Sanft was already tied to, with the death of a lead lawyer leaving that next phase to be carried forward by others.
