A Texas courtroom is once again at the center of national attention as a judge considers whether Karmelo Anthony, convicted this summer in the fatal stabbing of a fellow student at a high school track meet, deserves a new trial. Here’s what’s happening and how the case got here.
Anthony, now 19, was convicted in June of murdering 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during a confrontation at a high school track meet involving several area schools last year. Prosecutors say Metcalf and others repeatedly asked Anthony to leave a tent belonging to Metcalf’s team on a rainy spring day, and the exchange escalated. According to a police report, Anthony reached into a bag and told Metcalf, “Touch me and see what happens.” Witnesses testified that Metcalf then pushed Anthony, who pulled a knife and stabbed him in the chest. Anthony did not testify at trial. A Collin County jury rejected his claim that he acted in self-defense and convicted him of murder; a judge sentenced him to 35 years in prison.
The case drew intense national scrutiny in part because social media posts framed the killing along racial lines; Anthony is Black and Metcalf was white. Attorneys for both sides, however, told jurors race played no role in the confrontation, and both families have said they faced online harassment as the case gained attention.
Anthony’s attorneys asked for a new trial, arguing the June proceedings were unfair. Hearings on that request began Wednesday in Collin County. Before the retrial question could even be addressed, a visiting judge removed state District Judge John Roach Jr., who had presided over Anthony’s trial, at the defense’s request. Anthony’s legal team argued Roach compromised his impartiality with a television interview after the verdict in which he said jurors “got it right.” Judge Michael Chitty has since taken…
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