Attorneys for Karmelo Anthony filed an appeal Tuesday and requested a new trial for the former student-athlete convicted in the fatal stabbing of another student at a Texas track meet.Subscribe to read this story ad-freeGet unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.A jury sentenced 17-year-old Anthony to 35 years in prison after convicting him last month of the murder of Austin Metcalf, also 17, at a meet in Frisco, Texas, a Dallas bedroom community.
Anthony’s new attorneys, who did not represent him at the trial, said in their filings that the court erred when it restricted public access to the trial, violating Anthony’s rights.They also appealed on the grounds that the state and defense had an unwritten agreement to exclude certain character and “extraneous-offense” evidence from the trial, but that prosecutors repudiated the agreement, which denied Anthony the right to testify on his own behalf.
The attorneys criticized the speed at which the judge conducted the trial, including a court date on a Saturday when several defense witnesses were unavailable.“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 a separate filing, the attorneys demanded that state District Court Judge John Roach be removed from the case because he gave an interview after the trial to Dallas TV station WFAA and expressed personal opinions about the jury’s verdict, the fairness of the trial and correctness of his own rulings.Austin Metcalf.Memorial High SchoolThe attorneys stated that, by participating in the interview, Roach violated the state’s judicial conduct and standards code on appearance of objectivity.
According to Anthony’s attorneys, some of the judge’s “problematic” comment...