OAKLAND — A judge threw out murder charges against two men last month after prosecutors failed to convince him to advance the case past a pretrial hearing, court records show.
Murder charges were thrown out against Johnnie KellySanders, 25, and Reggie Morris, 24, after a May preliminary hearing. Judge Thomas Reardon made the decision after hearing evidence and listening to arguments from both lawyers, according to a minute order.
The hearing transcript was not immediately available. Police said at the time both men were arrested that they denied killing the victim, 26-year-old Parrish Anderson, and claimed a third companion that night was the one who fired the fatal shots.
Police said at the time the case was filed that Anderson was shot and killed during an illegal sale of an assault rifle on Dec. 7, 2020, near Green Acre Road and MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland. A 22-year-old Stockton man, who was with Morris and KellySanders, was shot in the chest but survived.
KellySanders has been in jail since he was arrested in 2021. Morris was charged last April, but before that had been serving a state prison sentence for an unrelated robbery, court records show.