A judge on Friday dismissed a Lincoln man's first-degree murder charge and significantly lowered his bond — even as prosecutors, who filed the motion to have the murder case tossed, filed new charges against the 22-year-old, attaching them to an old case.
Judge Thomas Zimmerman dismissed Jahhrasta Fletcher's murder charge Friday at the request of the Lancaster County Attorney's Office, which announced Thursday that it planned to file a motion to dismiss the case against the Lincoln man.
In a news release Thursday afternoon, County Attorney Pat Condon said he "does not believe there is sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Fletcher was not acting in self defense" when he allegedly shot and killed 33-year-old Robert Brannon of Omaha outside a downtown strip club in September.
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But before prosecutors filed a motion Friday to have the murder charge dismissed, Deputy County Attorney Amy Goodro filed enhanced charges in a felony weapons case against Fletcher that has been open since August 2021.
In that case, Fletcher had been charged with four felonies after Lincoln Police investigators allegedly found two firearms, 103 prescription pills and $360 cash while serving a search warrant on his apartment on Aug. 9, 2021, according to court filings.
Goodro filed an amended complaint in that case Friday, charging Fletcher with five felonies, including possession of a firearm while committing a felony, possession with intent to deliver a Schedule 4 drug, possession of drug money, possession of a stolen firearm and tampering with physical evidence.
Those charges — now the only charges Fletcher is facing in Lancaster County — carry a combined penalty of up 125 years in prison.
Only the evidence tampering charge is directly tied to Brannon's shooting death in September, when, Goodro alleged, Fletcher got rid of the gun used in the shooting, burned clothes and "was involved in deleting some video surveillance."
Even as prosecutors conceded that there wasn't sufficient evidence to convict Fletcher of murder, Goodro repeatedly pointed to Brannon's death as a rationale to keep Fletcher incarcerated at the Lancaster County jail.
The 22-year-old has been held at the jail since his arrest for Brannon's death in September on a $2 million percentage bond stemming from the now-dismissed murder charge. The percentage bond in the 2021 weapons case had been set at $50,000, meaning Fletcher could have paid $5,000 to be released Friday afternoon.
But before Zimmerman dismissed that charge Friday, Goodro filed a motion for a bond review in the weapons case and asked Zimmerman to set the percentage bond at $2 million — a sum that Fletcher's attorney, Todd Molvar, took issue with.
"That was the amount that the court set ... for first-degree murder," Molvar argued at Friday's hearing. "These charges are not first-degree murder."
Molvar noted that some of the allegations levied in Goodro's amended complaint "are quite old," dating back as far as June 2021, and told Zimmerman that Fletcher had plans for where to live and work if he was allowed to bond out.
"I would point out to the court that Mr. Fletcher has been in custody since September of last year — nearly nine months in custody, facing murder charges with the possibility of life imprisonment," said Molvar, who asked Zimmerman to set Fletcher's percentage bond no higher than $75,000.
"Mr. Fletcher has had a lot of time to consider his choices in the past and his choices moving forward with that sort of weight on his shoulders these last nine months," he added.
And, Molvar said, the 22-year-old hoped to bond out in time for his father's funeral in Tulsa, Oklahoma, next week — even offering to wear an ankle monitor if he would be allowed to attend.
Goodro, though, pointed again to the fledgling murder case against Fletcher, using his actions after Brannon's shooting death to cast the 22-year-old as a flight risk and as an example for Fletcher's alleged propensity to possess and use guns.
"He had a stolen firearm in April (2022) and again, obviously, having a firearm which resulted in the death of Mr. Brannon in September of 2022," Goodro said, before noting that the confrontation that led to Brannon's death is thought to have been the result of a drug debt owed between the men.
"I think the community's safety — Mr. Fletcher being out in the community puts everyone at risk," she said, before pointing again to Brannon's shooting.
After deliberating in silence for close to three minutes, Zimmerman set Fletcher's percentage bond in the weapons case at $500,000 and, minutes later, signed an ordering dismissing the 22-year-old's murder charge.
Fletcher — still facing legal peril but his hopes of bonding out improved — must pay $50,000 to be released from jail.