The teen on trial for allegedly fatally stabbing a Texas high school football star suffered a major blow after jury selection wrapped without a single black juror seated on the panel, according to reports.
The trial for Karmelo Anthony, who is black, will kick off Thursday morning with opening statements in the case accusing him of killing Austin Metcalf because of a dispute over seating at a track and field meet last year.
Anthony’s lawyer, Mike Howard, objected to prosecutors’ last three strikes of potential jurors on Wednesday, claiming the dismissal of the panelists were racially motivated, according to local outlet WFAA.
“Those three were 100% of the available African-American jurors in the strike zone,” Howard claimed.
But prosecutors countered that the choice was not racial but rather was made because all three of those jurors were teachers.
Judge John Roach Jr. ultimately sided with the prosecution that the choice wasn’t based on race.
At the conclusion of selection on Wednesday, 18 jury members were seated, including six alternates.
Anthony, 19, faces up to life in prison if convicted of the April 2, 2025 killing.
Metcalf, of Frisco Memorial High School, asked Anthony, then a 17-year-old senior from Frisco Centennial High School, to move from Memorial’s seating area during the meet at Kuykendall Stadium.
Anthony then pulled a knife out of his bag and stabbed Metcalf – who died in the arms of his twin, Hunter Metcalf, prosecutors alleged.
Anthony fled and was arrested shortly after.
In new filings, Anthony’s legal team argues that the teen’s rights regarding potential testimony were violated and that Roach’s post-trial interviews and actions give the appearance that his court was not “neutral.”
Weeks after a new legal team announced it would work pro bono in the appeals process for Karmelo Anthony, the judge presiding over his trial is being asked to recuse himself from future events related to the case and a motion has been filed for a new trial.
On Tuesday, the legal team filed a “Verified Motion to Recuse, requesting that Judge John Roach be removed from presiding over all remaining post-trial proceedings. Additionally, the defense team has filed a motion for a new trial, citing “consтιтutional and legal challenges stemming from the trial, and is requesting that those issues be decided by an independent judge.”
“When the moment came for the Defendant to make the most consequential decision of the trial, whether to waive his Fifth Amendment privilege and testify, the Court allotted the defense ten minutes to counsel a nineteen-year-old through it and denied counsel’s request for additional time,” the attorneys stated in their brief.
In their calls for Roach’s recusal, the attorneys argued that he gave an interview to a local television station and expressed what they believe to be “personal opinions” about the trial, his decisions regarding the trial while on the bench, and whether the trial was fair. The lawyers also suggested that Anthony had his rights violated and criticized the speed of the trial, including testimony heard on a Saturday, when most defense witnesses were unavailable.
“A judge who publicly memorializes the trial as concluded, and publicly pronounces the process fair, while still holding the authority to grant a new trial, signals to the reasonable observer that he regards the matter as closed,” the attorneys wrote.
Roach imposed a gag order during the trial on any commentary by other participants. In the attorney’s eyes, his writings on Facebook and statements in interviews violated Texas’ statute on judicial standards and conduct on objectivity and “sharpen rather than softens the appearance that the Court no longer sits as a neutral arbiter of the post-trial proceedings that remain before it.”
As theGrio previously reported, the teen’s new legal team was formed in late June, weeks after he was found guilty of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of a high school athlete at a track meet in Frisco, Texas last April. On the same day he was found guilty, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
The team includes Russell Wilson of the Law Office of Russell Wilson II in Dallas, Gary Bledsoe of the Bledsoe Law Firm PLLC and President of the Texas Chapter of the NAACP, Michael L. Ware of the Law Office of Michael Ware, Brooke Cluse of Ben Crump Law, Sean Daredia of Daredia Law Firm and Justin A. Moore of Stafford Moore PLLC.
