OAKLAND — A 47-year-old man originally charged with murder was instead allowed to plead no contest to two gun charges, after prosecutors failed to convince a judge that he didn’t act in self-defense when he allegedly shot and killed a man the day after Christmas 2023, court records show.
Bobby Ray Henderson, of Oakland, pleaded no contest to two gun charges last year, and was sentenced to four years behind bars, time he had mostly already served in jail. Now a free man, Henderson is due in court in late May for a restitution hearing, records show.
Henderson was charged in 2024 with murdering Da’Marcus Banks, a Dec. 26, 2023 shooting on the 1400 block of Sunshine Court in East Oakland. Authorities said at the time that Henderson demanded Banks return a dirt bike that had been stolen, then killed him in the dispute that followed. But Henderson’s attorney said there was a lot more to the story; that surveillance footage proved Banks shot first after Henderson “reasonably” asked for his property back, and that Henderson was in the area seeking victim services after having been robbed and shot weeks prior.
In September 2024, Judge Delia Trevino dismissed the murder count, finding that prosecutors had failed to clearly establish the fatal shot came from Henderson’s gun, let alone disprove a self-defense theory. But the following month, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office re-filed the murder charge and the prosecution continued.
“Most of the evidence introduced at this hearing would justify self-defense,” Trevino said at the preliminary hearing. “I also think it is significant that the People can’t even argue which shot was responsible for Mr. Banks’ death. And there is no video evidence of the fatal shot and it appeared to the Court that Mr. Banks left the scene where Mr. Henderson was firing his gun. That would have to be a pretty good shot, I think from that distance and those angles.”
Henderson’s lawyer, Pinaki Chakravorty, argued in court records that surveillance footage and corresponding audio showed the order of shots: first from Banks, then return fire from Henderson. Prosecutors said Banks died from a gunshot wound to the back of his head.
“When Mr. Henderson asked reasonably for his bike back, Banks first started yelling profanities at him, then brandished a firearm, and then started shooting at him,” Chakravorty said.
Henderson pleaded no contest to being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was not allowed to possess guns in part due to a 2021 conviction of sexually abusing an unconscious person in Fresno, court records show.