A Las Vegas jury will hear closing arguments today in a murder trial built almost entirely on the defendant's own stories — because the same DA's office that had probable cause to charge him 17 years ago chose not to, and now needs a scapegoat to close the books on a three-decade cold case.

Duane "Keffe D" Davis faces murder charges for the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur, and the trial exposes everything rotten about a system that looked the other way for decades. Former homicide detective Dan Long testified that after a 2009 proffer interview with Davis, he intended to write an arrest warrant because there was "plenty of probable cause" — but the district attorney's office declined to charge. That's not a gap in evidence. That's a choice by prosecutors to let a murder suspect walk.

Now, 17 years later, the state's case rests on almost eight hours of recordings from four instances where Davis told his version of events. The defense's theory, consistent since opening statements: his client is a liar. Attorney Michael Sanft called Davis's admissions — from a 1998 police interview through proffers, podcasts, a documentary, and a 2019 memoir — "a nearly two-decade work of fiction," summarized on a slide in all caps: "BULLSH*T."

Sanft called the lead detective's work "biased, sloppy and incomplete," saying he "backloaded his work." He pressed the question he returned to all trial: why wasn't Davis charged years earlier? The defense rested in under two hours after calling just three witnesses. The prosecution needed eight days and 25 witnesses — and still, several people refused to break what CNN described as "the code of the streets." James McDonald, the former head of security at Club 662, refused to share names of others present that night. "I'm not finna send him to prison. You are!" he told the defense attorney.

Judge Carli Kierny ruled Friday that jurors will hear instructions to consider the voluntariness of Davis's statements, including those given under a proffer agreement in 2008 and 2009. They'll also consider whether Shakur was shot in self-defense — a theory proposed by prosecutors themselves.

So let's get this straight: the DA's office had probable cause in 2009 and passed. The defendant's own words — which the defense says are fabrications — are the backbone of the prosecution. The lead detective's work is described as sloppy and backloaded. Key witnesses still won't talk. And the state is now offering a self-defense theory for the victim. This isn't justice for Tupac. This is a system that failed for 30 years scrambling to pin a historical wrong on the one guy who talked too much.

The question isn't whether Davis is a liar. The defense concedes that. The question is whether a prosecution built on a fabulist's memoir, a delayed arrest, and compromised detective work is enough to take a man's freedom — or whether Las Vegas just needs this file closed before anyone asks why it sat open for three decades.