Lawyers for Karmelo Anthony Seek New Trial, Alleging Judicial Bias and Other Issues
“They also asked for Judge John Roach to be removed from post-trial hearings because of his alleged bias.”
In June, Karmelo Anthony was found guilty of murdering Austin Metcalf during a school-related sporting event. He was sentenced to 35 years.
Now his defense team is seeking a new trial, claiming that the judge in the case was biased, that the instructions given to the jury were unclear, and that there were several other issues. A date for a hearing in August has already been set.
FOX 4 in Texas reports:
Hearings are set for next month as Karmelo Anthony seeks a new trial, six weeks after he was sentenced to prison for the fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalf at a Frisco track meet stabbing.
What we know: Anthony’s legal team is seeking a new trial over claims that the trial was effectively closed to the public, that prosecutors did not honor an off-the-record evidentiary agreement, and that instructions to the jury made it difficult for them to consider Anthony acted in self-defense.
They also asked for Judge John Roach to be removed from post-trial hearings because of his alleged bias.
In court filings, Anthony’s lawyers said the judge made comments to news reporters following the trial and “expressed personal opinions about the propriety and correctness of the jury’s verdict, the fairness of the trial and the correctness of the judge’s own rulings during the trial.”
When a reporter asked Roach if the jury got it right, he responded, “Yeah, they did.” The judge then reportedly explained himself and talked about his rulings.
The defense argued that the judge’s personal views suggest his probable decision on a motion for a new trial.
What’s new: A different Collin County judge will hold a hearing on Aug. 19 to on the motion to replace Judge Roach.
The next day, the defense team will argue their motion for a new trial.
Do these folks really think a new trial will find him not guilty and send him home? He was lucky to avoid the death penalty.
🚨 Karmelo Anthony — the kid who stabbed 17-year-old Austin Metcalf to death at a high school track meet in Frisco last year, just got his “new trial” hearings set for next month.
He was FOUND GUILTY of first-degree murder. Sentenced to 35 years. Self-defense claim rejected by… pic.twitter.com/3sTxsY0gIJ
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) July 25, 2026
This seems like a futile exercise.
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Comments
A new trial would be a waste of money. Put the death penalty on the table if he gets a new trial for both the perp and his lawyers.
The death penalty is not possible.
Why is the death penalty not possible?
https://texaslawchanges.com/explaining-texas-death-penalty-laws/
Roper v Simmons
Also, no longer possible to sentence him to life without parole due to a more recent supreme court decision.
Also, this murder doesn’t match any of the nine offenses on your list, so even if he’d been an adult the death penalty would not have been available.
Your link is to a list of ways to commit capital murder in Texas, none of which Karmelo Anthony did. It’s a laundry list of types of murder Texas especially wants to discourage hence has classed as “capital murder” (no degrees of murder in Texas, only murder and capital murder) and made eligible for the death penalty.
Straight murder, which Karmelo Anthony did do, is not eligible for the death penalty in Texas; it is a first degree felony(*) with a penalty of five to ninety-nine years.
(*) If they convict of murder, the jury is sent back to have a hearing on whether the convicted was faced with a surprise situation which might make a normal person panic or lose his temper. If the jury rules it was, by a standard of preponderance of evidence, that reduces the charge to a second degree felony with a penalty of two to twenty years. The “touch me and see what happens” probably put the kibosh on the jury thinking Karmelo Anthony had done the stabbing on impulse.
Prison justice isn’t beyond the realm of possibilities.
You should look into Nolan Wells. A child drowns and idiots on social media concoct conspiracy theories that his white friends were secretly racist and murdered him. There’s a story in the Boston Globe about it today.
This is the only way I would ever know what is in the Boston Globe.
Was there a tox screen on Wells? It sounded like they were complicit and this is one explanation that I thought was possible.
Why even consider if they were complicit? He stayed behind to chat up a girl, tried swimming where there are dangerous currents, and drowned.
They were on a packed sandbar. If they were doing something to him, all he had to do was call foe help.
There is zero evidence that his white friends killed him from the information I have seen, other than they are white and he is black.
There is a Tox Screen pending.
The most likely thing that happened is it was an tragic accident.
Karmelo Anthony confessed to the murder when he was arrested. “I Did It”: Bodycam Catches Karmelo Anthony Confessing in Metcalf Murder.
I find it difficult to see how “judicial bias” undoes that confession.
The first component of any self-defense claim is your confession
f any of the 5 elements are disproven, alls (I said “alls,” I’m from Joisey now 🙂 ) that’s left is your confession
Here’s your daily reminder: guilty or not, never talk to the police. You’ll never get out of being put in the back of the cruiser and anything you do say is used to nail your 🫏 to the wall.
Any question they ask you they already know the answer to. If s/he were with you on scene, your lawyer would tell you to zip it shut.
🤐🤐🤐
I agree with Branco. If you killed in self defense, give one short clear account incorporating all 5 memorized elements of self defense and then keep your trap shut forever.
Branca, not Branco . Easy to confuse.
Branco did this
https://x.com/rduke0071/status/2063425508512043360/photo/1
“De police said if ah dint confess, dey gonna make me pick cotton!”
It was a good offer, you should have taken it.
Mike LaChance:
It’s potential reversible error to not view Branca’s analysis before submitting to LI… 🙂
It puts odds of any possible success in this tripe in perspective, highly recommend
https://youtu.be/oesl2RXpfPQ?si=-LaYXxUJWdaT75Ss
This shall not pass
Or all hell should break out
This is the only way I would ever know what is in the Boston Globe.
While it is unsaid, what they want is to move the trial out of Collin County. Preferably move it to a jurisdiction that is leftist and has lots of blacks for the jury. Oh I know where, Dallas County which is right next door.
Of course. They don’t want a rational verdict. They want an emotional one.
As a Dallas county resident, I can confirm that Dallas county would be ideal, along with Harris and Travis county.
I live near San Antonio now. I moved here from the DFW area. Bexar County would also be good because they don’t like white folks down here either. I you are Mexican or black you’ve got it made.
Forever known as the Oberlin Hail Mary.
Guilty verdict = bias
And racism.
Honestly, this trial was an eye opener for at least a FEW normies who were confronted with just how much of the so-called ‘black community’ would excuse cold blooded murder by claiming if Metcalf ‘put hands on him’ by shoving him, that justified it. That and the blatant fraud of fundraising for ‘legal fees’ and immediately using it to move into a mansion.
Not all, but at least a FEW normies were shocked into paying attention.
Watch some bodycams and you quickly realize putting your hands on someone is as bad as stabbing them to a certain culture.
And “disrespecting” them is violence.
New rule, a variation of an old one: When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the law is on your side, argue the law. When neither the facts or the law are on your side, insult the judge.
The lawyers mistake was not having him trying on a set of gloves soaked in water so they would shrink and announcing you must acquit. The perps mistake was not announcing he was going to leave no stone unturned searching for the killer.
As I remember it….. the lawyer pulled back the liner as he removed his hand from the glove so O;J. couldn’t put hand in glove. Deception…. one of the many tools to use to win a case…but deception by compromising evidence.
I enjoy watching this turd’s lawyers hanging themselves out on allege
“When a reporter asked Roach if the jury got it right, he responded, “Yeah, they did.”
Trivially defensible: juries always get it right by definition.
In my state, that is literally part of the scripted post trial statement the judge makes to the jury. Something along the lines of: The decision you have made is the correct one, because you the jury have made it. No one else sat and saw the evidence you did…yadda yadda.
By all means a new judge and a new trial with a for real life sentence back on the table (a minor generally can’t get the death penalty) and a jury who can’t help but notice homeboy is attempting to blow up the IMO very lenient 35 year sentence he got at 1st.trial. Demanding another ‘at bat’ is all well and good till you strike out even worse or maybe get hit in the temple with a 95+ mph fastball.
No, he wasn’t. The death penalty was not available, and is still not available. The worst he can possibly get is a life sentence, with parole available eventually.
Well, he was lucky in the sense that he fell into that exemption. If he had waited 6 months or more to murder someone who dissed him, he could have been a goner.
Not according to the list Ghostrider posted, of the only nine capital offenses in Texas law. This murder doesn’t match any of those nine.
Straight murder in Texas has a maximum penalty of 99 years. To get either the death penalty or LWOP you have to commit one of the several types of murder Texas seeks to discourage especially strongly.
https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-19-03/
The death penalty was not available in the Carmelo Anthony murder case
for two main reasons:
1) Age of the Perpetrator: Karmelo Anthony was 17 years old at the time of the crime.
2) Texas Law: Texas law prohibits the death penalty for individuals under 18 years of age.
the judge in the case was biased
Yeah, he was. Biased toward the law.
I have no objection to the attempt to seek a new trial. It’s a right given under the law, and the lawyers are free to make any claims they choose as justification for the request I also have no objection to the family fundraising to hire lawyers for the attempt.
Certainly I have my own opinions as to the likelihood of the success of this exercise, but that means nothing. The thing is that it’s permissible, no matter how unlikely success may appear.
He confessed, there were witnesses, he was tried and convicted.
CASE CLOSED
But of course. He’s black, young, disadvantaged, and his victim was white and “privileged”. Nowadays, the victim is glorified as one who fought the “system”: racist, white supremacist, whichever “system” applies in the given circumstance.. Appalling that his lawyers request a new trial. He deserves the maximum sentence.
A new trial Hail Mary is not based on judicial bias, jury instruction or promises by prosecutors. It is to empanel a new jury to include people you saw ranting and raving how the racist judicial system convicted yet again another black teen.
One of the allegations of the plaintiff’s attorneys was that the Judge gave them instructions before they began deliberations that made it difficult for them to find Karmelo acted in self defense. I’ve seen my share of jury instructions in my career in the Insurance industry and I know that the instructions are agreed upon by both the prosecutor and the plaintiff’s attorneys. .
Hey! If you can’t have two bites of the apple, you’ll never finish an apple!
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