The Texas prosecutor who handled Karmelo Anthony’s conviction in the fatal stabbing at a high school track meet said Thursday that both sides had agreed to withhold evidence that could have further heightened racial tensions and death threats surrounding the case. The agreement is now central to Anthony’s bid for a retrial. Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in prison for killing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during a confrontation in the bleachers of a high school stadium near Dallas last year.
Anthony, 19, was seated at the defense table as one of his lawyers argued that the agreement was one of several errors that compromised his June trial. The hearing is expected to continue Friday, with no indication yet of when the judge will rule on Anthony’s request for a new trial. Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white.
Anthony once sent a text fantasizing about stabbing someone, and Metcalf had a history of fighting and using racist language, prosecutor Bill Wirskye said. Both were details that did not come up during the trial. During the trial, lawyers on both sides told jurors the tragedy had nothing to do with race, but social media posts amplified the killing nationwide in racial terms.
Defense attorney Russell Wilson told the judge Thursday that a new trial should be allowed because of errors that limited access to the proceedings. He cited the off-the-record agreement between the legal teams. He said the case’s original judge allowed a “shadow docket” that shielded character information about both sides.
But the prosecutor argued that Anthony received a fair trial and said his original attorneys had agreed to everything done during the trial. Wirskye said he agreed not to use the character evidence because he wanted to focus on the moments leading up to the stabbing. The prosecutor said he agreed not to use evidence that showed Anthony had an obsession with guns and knives and that he was angry on the morning of the stabbing.
Howard, Anthony’s trial attorney, said the defense team had information showing that Metcalf had used racial slurs in the past and had bullied Black classmates. As Howard spoke in the courtroom, Metcalf's parents sat quietly in the gallery. As national attention intensified last year, the families of both Metcalf and Anthony said they had been targets of harassment.
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