Alert: Karmelo Anthony One Step Closer to Overturning Guilty Verdict, Walking Free, Thanks to New Judge
If the first step in getting a new trial is getting a new judge, convicted killer Karmelo Anthony has already taken a great leap forward.
Presiding over a hearing Thursday on whether Anthony should get a new trial in the stabbing death of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during a track meet in Frisco, Texas, in April 2025, was a jurist who had nothing to do with the original case.
And that was just what Anthony’s attorneys had been hoping for.
Judge will consider new trial for Karmelo Anthony after teen killer’s legal victory https://t.co/imUbz3QhjR pic.twitter.com/UgCuU93lkN
— New York Post (@nypost) August 20, 2026
The original trial judge, Collin County Judge John Roach, was removed from the case Wednesday at the request of the defense team, according to ABC News.
Anthony’s attorneys had argued that Roach’s decisions while conducting the trial, as well as comments he made to the media after the jury convicted Anthony in June, rendered him unfit to serve as an impartial judge in Anthony’s retrial bid.
According to The Associated Press, the judge who heard Anthony’s bid to have Roach removed from the case said he thought Roach could be impartial, but conceded that Roach’s “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
When the decision was announced, Anthony’s supporters outside the courtroom cheered, while chants of “Free Karmelo” broke out in the parking lot outside the courthouse in McKinney, Texas, the AP reported.
Roach limited access to the trial by the public and by the news media — which Anthony’s defense team claimed infringed on Anthony’s right to a fair trial. In a post-trial interview that was played at Wednesday’s hearing, Roach also told an interviewer that he thought the jury that convicted Anthony after only three hours of deliberations “got it right.”
Hours after the jury’s decision was announced, Roach sentenced Anthony to 35 years in prison.
The case is now in the hands of District Judge Michael Chitty, a retired jurist from Kaufman County, according to WFAA-TV in Dallas. Kaufman County borders Collin County to the south.
Grounds for Anthony’s team seeking the retrial include the circumstances surrounding the now-19-year-old’s decision not to testify in his own defense, the AP reported. Anthony’s legal team claimed he stabbed Metcalf in self-defense.
Collin County First Assistant District Attorney Bill Wirskye, who prosecuted the case, offered to restrict his questioning of Anthony to the events of the day of the stabbing.
At Thursday’s hearing, according to WFAA-TV in Dallas, Anthony attorney Russell Wilson argued that Anthony’s defense didn’t trust Wirskye to stick to that agreement.
Wirskye, however, argued that he had offered the agreement in the first place in order to “keep the peace” in a trial that was a flashpoint of racial controversy. Metcalf was white. Anthony is black.
He also indicated he wanted Anthony to testify because it would make his prosecution easier.
“There’s nothing better in my business than a testifying defendant,” he said, according WFAA.
It was unclear when Chitty plans to make a decision in the case.
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