Karmelo Anthony’s lawyer asks for new trial in Texas track meet killing as new details revealed
McKINNEY, Texas — The Texas prosecutor who oversaw Karmelo Anthony’s conviction in a deadly stabbing at a high school track meet said Thursday that both sides had agreed to hold back evidence that risked further inflaming a case already boiling with racial tensions and death threats.
Read more Jurors hear ‘Keffe D’ say his nephew fired fatal shots at Tupac Shakur in 1996 drive-by shooting
That agreement is at the center of whether a judge will order a retrial for Anthony, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison over the killing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf last year during a confrontation in the bleachers of a high school stadium near Dallas.
Anthony, 19, sat at the defense table as his attorney argued that the pact ultimately marred the June trial, which ended with jurors rejecting his claims of self-defense. Prosecutor Bill Wirskye defended the trial as fair.
The hearing was set to continue Friday, and it was not clear when the judge will rule on Anthony’s retrial request.
Read more Former Pakistani leader Imran Khan is medically fit and back in jail, official says
Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white. Among the details that jurors never heard, according to attorneys on both sides, were that Anthony once sent a text message fantasizing about stabbing someone and Metcalf had a history of fighting and using racist language.
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.
“All of us wanted the temperature on this, so to say, to be turned down,” said Mike Howard, who was Anthony’s lead attorney.
Read more Cameroon’s 93-year-old president returns after a long stay abroad raises health concerns
