Karmelo Anthony's new legal team made its first major moves Tuesday (July 7), filing a motion for a new trial and demanding the removal of the judge who presided over his murder conviction, arguing that Anthony's constitutional rights were violated and that the judge can no longer be expected to rule impartially.
Anthony, 19, was convicted last month of murdering 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during a Frisco, Texas, track meet on April 2, 2025, and sentenced to 35 years in prison. He admitted to the stabbing but maintained he acted in self-defense.
According to NBC News, his pro bono appellate team — assembled through the Stand With Karmelo Coalition and including Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe, former Dallas County prosecutor Russell Wilson, and Brooke Cluse of Ben Crump Law — filed the two motions in Collin County District Court.
The motion for a new trial reportedly raises five primary arguments. First, the defense argues the court improperly restricted public access by limiting courtroom seating, requiring people to line up before dawn, and eliminating an overflow courtroom once testimony began, violating Anthony's constitutional right to a public trial.
Second, the attorneys allege that prosecutors and the defense had reached an unwritten agreement before trial to limit evidence to what occurred during the confrontation under the track meet tent — excluding character evidence and prior bad acts involving either Anthony or Metcalf — but that prosecutors repudiated that agreement during trial, per NBC News.
The defense says they relied on the agreement throughout, limiting their voir dire questions, opening statement, and cross-examination, and choosing not to call two expert witnesses, including a neuropsychologist who would have testified about Anthony's epilepsy.
Third, the attorneys argued the pace of the trial unfairly disadvantaged the defense, including holding court on a Saturday when several defense witnesses were unavailable.
Fourth and most strikingly, they argued Anthony was denied his right to make a fully informed decision about whether to testify in his own defense.
"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 wrote, per NBC News.
In a separate filing, the team demanded that Judge John Roach be recused from all remaining post-trial proceedings. The attorneys argue that Roach compromised his impartiality by giving a post-verdict interview to Dallas TV station WFAA in which he endorsed the jury's verdict, called Anthony "a nice young man" who "understands today the consequences of committing a crime like he did," and defended both his courtroom rulings and the all-white jury selection.
Roach also wrote a signed public letter on the Collin County website calling the trial "one of the great honors of my judicial career.” Meanwhile, Roach has sealed the entire court file, only allowing Anthony's attorneys to view it under conditions they say they have not agreed to.
"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.
The attorneys also noted the irony that Roach imposed a gag order on all other participants during trial while making public statements himself — a contrast they argued "sharpens rather than softens the appearance that the Court no longer sits as a neutral arbiter.”
If Roach is recused, another judge would decide on the new trial motion. If that motion is denied, Anthony's team is expected to file a direct appeal.
In a statement to NBC 5, the Collin County District Attorney's Office disputed the defense's claims, calling them "inaccurate characterizations of the trial proceedings" and saying prosecutors remain confident in both the verdict and the fairness of the trial.
Judge Roach has not publicly responded to the motion seeking his recusal.
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