Texas judge upholds Karmelo Anthony murder conviction, denies new-trial motion

A retired Texas judge denied Karmelo Anthony’s bid for a new trial Saturday, leaving the 19-year-old’s murder conviction and 35-year prison sentence intact after a two-day hearing that laid bare a bitter dispute between former defense lawyers and prosecutors over an unwritten agreement that kept Anthony off the witness stand.

Retired District Judge Michael Chitty issued the ruling in McKinney, Texas, after reviewing the motion, the court record, evidence, arguments, briefs, and relevant case law. His order ran barely half a page and offered no detailed reasoning for the denial, a terse conclusion to a hearing that exposed how an off-the-record deal between lawyers unraveled at the worst possible moment for the defense.

Anthony was convicted in June of stabbing and killing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet in Frisco, near Dallas. A Collin County jury found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. The defense had argued self-defense, claiming Anthony was protecting himself during a confrontation that began when Metcalf told Anthony he was sitting in the wrong area.

The jury reached its sentencing verdict in roughly two and a half hours, Just The News reported. That speed suggested jurors saw little ambiguity in the evidence, or in Anthony’s culpability.

The unwritten agreement that fell apart

At the center of the new-trial motion was a gentleman’s agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors. Both sides had agreed, orally and off the record, to keep damaging character evidence about both teenagers out of the trial. The idea was straightforward: neither side would introduce material that might prejudice the jury beyond the facts of the confrontation itself.

But the two sides never hammered out the fine print, specifically, whether the agreement would hold if Anthony himself took the stand.

Former lead defense attorney Mike Howard testified at the hearing that he understood the oral agreement would allow Anthony to testify so long as he stayed focused on the confrontation under the tent at the Frisco track meet. Howard acknowledged, however, that the lawyers never expressly agreed on whether a testifying defendant was covered by the arrangement. He said he could not say whether prosecutors acted in bad faith.

Former defense attorney Toby Shook testified Friday that the original defense team had always expected Anthony to take the stand in support of his self-defense claim. Shook said the position prosecutors took caught him off guard. During a break in the trial, the defense updated Anthony and explained that presiding Judge John Roach said he could not enforce the unwritten agreement. That left Anthony unsure whether testifying would allow prosecutors to introduce character evidence, and ultimately, he chose not to take the stand.

The decision not to testify may have been fatal to the self-defense argument. Lead prosecutor Bill Wirske himself had used a continuing legal education presentation on self-defense that included a slide advising defense lawyers that the client “(probably) needs to testify.” The defense introduced that presentation during the new-trial hearing, a pointed reminder that even the prosecution recognized how important defendant testimony is in self-defense cases.

What the jury never heard

The character evidence kept from jurors cut in both directions, but some of it was deeply damaging to Anthony. A 2023 text message in which Anthony wrote “imma shoot the school up tmr” was withheld under the gentleman’s agreement, the New York Post reported. A police report also described Anthony telling Metcalf, “touch me and see what happens.”

The stabbing itself occurred at a track meet in Frisco in April 2025. Jurors had recoiled at autopsy images presented during the trial, evidence that underscored the violence of the attack regardless of how the confrontation began.

Wirske disputed that the agreement was broken. He said prosecutors remained willing to honor it but feared that testimony from Anthony or his mother could inadvertently open the door to character evidence. In other words, the prosecution’s position was that the agreement was intact, the defense simply chose not to risk it.

That distinction matters. The defense framed the situation as a broken promise that stripped Anthony of his right to testify. The prosecution framed it as a strategic choice the defense made on its own. Judge Chitty sided with the result, if not the reasoning, his order denied the motion without explaining which version he found more credible.

The judge who said the jury ‘got it right’

The new-trial hearing itself only happened after a separate judicial controversy. Judge John Roach, who presided over Anthony’s murder trial, was removed from remaining trial-court proceedings earlier in the week by Judge Sid Harle. The reason: Roach had publicly told a television interviewer that the jury “got it right” and defended several of his trial decisions.

Harle found that a reasonable outside observer could question whether Roach appeared impartial, a standard that, once met, left little room for Roach to continue handling post-trial motions. Frederick Douglass Haynes III stated that Roach “jumped the gun” by publicly agreeing with the jury’s guilty verdict, raising questions about whether Anthony received a fair trial, the Washington Examiner reported.

That a trial judge would publicly endorse a verdict while post-trial motions were still pending is, at minimum, a serious lapse in judicial discipline. But Roach’s removal did not ultimately help Anthony. Chitty, the retired judge brought in to replace him, reached the same bottom line: no new trial.

What the defense argued, and what remains

The unwritten agreement was the headline issue, but it was not the only one. Anthony’s defense team also argued that courtroom-access restrictions violated his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial and that jury instructions limited jurors’ ability to consider self-defense. The defense additionally raised concerns about hearings held without Anthony present.

Anthony’s 35-year sentence capped a year of legal turmoil surrounding the case. The composition of the jury also drew scrutiny: the panel included no Black jurors after three prospective Black jurors were excused, a fact the defense raised during retrial arguments.

None of these claims moved Chitty. His half-page order disposed of all of them without elaboration.

Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis issued a written statement following the ruling:

“We respect, and expected, the court’s decision denying the motion for a new trial. The jury’s guilty verdict stands, and we remain confident in the process. Every defendant has the right to appeal, and our thoughts and prayers remain with the Metcalf family in the painful wake of last week’s hearing.”

The defense signaled it will not stop here. Defense attorney Russell Wilson said the team’s commitment to Anthony “has not changed,” AP News reported, adding: “We will continue to advocate vigorously on his behalf through every lawful avenue available.”

Anthony’s challenge will continue on direct appeal. Which appellate court will hear the case, and whether a formal appeal has been filed, remain unclear.

The real cost of handshake deals

This case is a cautionary tale about the dangers of unwritten agreements in criminal proceedings. Two sets of experienced lawyers struck an oral deal that shaped the entire trial strategy, and then disagreed about what the deal actually covered. The defendant, a 19-year-old facing 35 years, bore the consequences.

Whether Anthony’s self-defense claim had merit is a question the jury answered. But whether he got a full chance to make that claim, whether the collapse of a gentleman’s agreement denied him the opportunity to testify in his own defense, is a question that will now travel to an appellate court.

Supporters assembled outside the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney during the hearing week. Anthony’s mother, Kayla Hayes, had testified during the sentencing phase. “He’s my oldest, he’s my firstborn,” she told the court. “He will always be my baby. I love him very much.”

The criminal justice system asks juries to weigh facts, not feelings. But it also asks lawyers and judges to keep their word, follow procedure, and protect the rights of every defendant, even unpopular ones. When judges editorialize on camera and lawyers build strategy on handshake deals they never bother to write down, the system invites exactly the kind of post-trial chaos this case has produced.

In a system built on the rule of law, courts that follow procedure earn public trust. Courts that cut corners, even with the best intentions, earn appeals.

Anthony’s conviction stands for now. Whether it stands for good depends on whether an appellate court sees a strategic miscalculation or a constitutional violation. Either way, the lesson is plain: if a deal matters enough to change a trial, it matters enough to put in writing.