Black teen Karmelo Anthony, 19, was found guilty of murder today in the fatal stabbing of an unarmed white teen, 17-year-old Austin Metcalf, at a high school track meet last year in Frisco, Texas, in April 2025. Ahead of closing arguments today, the judge decided that jurors could also consider manslaughter, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Jurors were not moved. The jury began deliberating today before and reached a verdict in only three hours, the mark of an open-and-shut case.
It always seemed like one. The victim was unarmed. Apparently he touched or pushed Anthony, and the defense argued that Anthony stabbed him in the heart in self-defense. None of the witnesses felt that Anthony’s actions were justified.
However, the news media and conservative pundits have been suggesting ominously that a guilty verdict would be likely to set off George Floyd or Michael Brown level, Black Lives Matter rioting. A recent piece in Red State is typical. Teri Cristophe writes in “Is This How Democrats Will Solve Their Graham Platner Problem?”:
Ethics Alarms 
“I don’t understand why Anthony didn’t plead guilty. That his lawyers didn’t talk him into doing so seems like flagrant malpractice to me.”
There may not have been any sort of offer.
What I do not understand why he did not testify. I had the same problem with Chauvin. These are the sorts of cases where the jury needs to hear what your side of the story. If it is about his fear or his intent, he was the only one who could talk to the jury about that. With him, and Chauvin, there was no real question about what happened, it is only what box it goes into. Neither of them testified, so the jury had little basis to answer the “why” question.
-Jut
Criminal defense conventional wisdom is that you never let your defendant testify unless as a last resort. I agree that in both the George Floyd case and here, the defense needed to resort to it….but they knew their client. Maybe Anthony would have collapsed under cross and it was too risky.
Yeah, I am not sure what I think of that conventional wisdom. If someone says they are innocent, I give him this dichotomy:
If you are innocent, and you do not testify, then, if you get convicted, you will regret not testifying for the rest of your life.
But, if you testify, and they convict you anyway, at least you will be able to say that you did everything you could do to defend yourself.
My experience:
Client gave me a story I could not believe. He insisted it was true. I had him “testify in the narrative,” a signal to the prosecution and counsel that a defendant is invoking his right to testify, over my duty of candor as an officer of the Court. He was convicted before the jury got their Subway lunch order; they still got their free meal, though. My vindication: the conviction was overturned because the evidence that convicted him was obtained in an unconstitutional search. His conviction was vacated on appeal, based upon my argument. I count that as a win, even though he served 180 days.
I told a guy that I did not want him to testify because I knew he was guilty. He was acquitted of Attempted Murder (Yay!), but convicted of Assault with a deadly weapon (what can I say? He shot a guy at point blank range.)
Then, I have found prosecutors to be kind of blow-hards. They posture about tough cross-examination, but they don’t seem to do it very well. They probably are not that experienced at it. Some were kind of aggressive, but if an innocent person can tell the truth, the prosecution has little advantage.
Of course, now, I have a guy who claims innocence. I tell him he needs to testify, but, guilty or not (I am not sure) he is all over the place. He does not understand that the State made him a great offer, a just and appropriate offer for the circumstances, and wants to fight every charge because of things unrelated to the charges against him.
Stay tuned:
-Jut
I saw a video today of a woman outside the courthouse (I think, because the video framing sucked). She was black and yelling at a white guy that she is scared and confused now because she has four sons and doesn’t know what to tell them now. She doesn’t know how to protect them now. It is now too dangerous for those black boys to be. A comment on the video by a conservative black man said something like, “Well ma’am, perhaps you should merely teach them to not carry knives to places where they are prohibited, like track meets.”
I say this not to disagree with anything you have said. I want so much for this to not be an issue. That woman’s statement should mean nothing, since we all know that the way IQ is calculated means that half of the people out there have under 100 on the scale. However, I have seen a few videos posted of people getting cranky about this verdict because “it shows that there is no justice for a black kid who is just defending himself.”
I hope sanity prevails and we see no major issues with this verdict. I have to soon travel to a Democratic run city here soon on important business and don’t want to be caught up in any insanity from this. However, I am not holding my breath that good sense and reality will prevail.
“A comment on the video by a conservative black man said something like, ‘Well ma’am, perhaps you should merely teach them to not carry knives to places where they are prohibited, like track meets.’ “
Priceless!
PWS
Why would he have to be conservative? My description would be “rational.”
This particular commenter does not HAVE to be a conservative. However, his Substack is one I subscribe to and he very much IS a conservative.
I will also state that very few liberals (unless they are older liberals who jumped off the bandwagon when progressivism came to town -see Turley) seem to be on speaking terms with “rational” about this and many subjects.
“Democrats can’t be dumb enough to try to make a martyr out of Karmelo Anthony. They just can’t. Right?“
I am just curious what our host is willing to bet on this; the last word of the post indicates some doubt. I am afraid that Red State may have a point here, and I hope they are wrong.
I do not like the scenes outside the courthouse. A group of black people who believe the entire case is about race, and are cheering on Karmelo Anthony. One of the protesters is on video shouting “The only good cracker is a dead cracker”. Not that I am surprised by this, given that the GiveSendGo campaign for Karmelo’s defense was motivated by the desire to fight white supremacy. For Karmelo and his family, and for the donors to this fund the issue has always about race since the arrest, and not about justice (murder or self-defense).
I also do not like the counter protesters, with their “White Lives Matters” banners, American flag T-shirts, and some of them waving confederate flags. This is like waving a red cape in front of a bull, needlessly provocative. Why would anybody not just simply follow the court proceedings on television from home, and hope and trust that the jury reaches a just verdict?
About not having an African American on the jury, this is not evidence of jury rigging in disfavor of Karmelo by the prosecution. The county in which the trial took place has a 12% black population. The likelihood of a jury without any African American by random selection is 20%; this means that there was no significant bias against African Americans during jury selection. Statistics often uses a likelihood of below five percent as significant. One of the black juror prospects demonstrated bias during jury selection by stating that he “would have a hard time convicting a brother”, and had to be stricken for reason. The jury was not all white as there were four minority members on the jury, just not black. I do not blame the prosecution for trying to prevent racially biased jurors reaching an OJ Simpson style verdict based on racial considerations.
The trial proceedings did not show racial bias. Many of the witnesses against Karmelo Anthony were black. Austin Metcalf’s coach is black.
If the defense attorney is worth his salt and salary (which he has not proven during this trial) the best thing he can do is appeal the verdict based on the jury selection process. We will see how much merit it has. The speed and clarity of the verdict will be a big hurdle for the defense to get an appeal.
Sadly enough this society has enough low IQ people who will milk their grievance till the bitter end and will be willing to burn this society like in 2020. To them I would say “bring it on and make my day” and see how this works out in the mid-terms. They will find that accusations of racism have lost the power to shame and manipulate people, and now only contribute to the phenomenon of “black fatigue”.
Comment of the Day.
Very much appreciated!
35 years from the jury
Their Graham Platner-sized problem. American cities being looted and burned is the very distraction they need.
Sheesh, a “wag the dog” conspiracy theory. That’s pretty sad.
From what I read, the potential black jurors were dismissed for admitting bias for Anthony and/or they work as educators of school-age children.
There were no black jurors, but it was not an all white jury as some protesters are claiming.
Protesters in TX are mostly just yelling at each other for now. It’s not heating up the way Belfast is. (Fiery, but mostly peaceful.)
It’s possible he refused to take a plea. This seems like a very obvious case where you would take a plea and try to get him as many protections as you can if you are his lawyer. He was a minor when it happened.
This case gives me no joy. It actually deeply saddens me. I suspect this kid wasn’t raised in a good environment.
I will pass provisional judgment on the scenario that has been provided to me, bearing in mind that the scenario is incomplete and might be different from what actually happened in Frisco. In other words, my judgment applies to the Anthony case only to the extent that the information I found matches the actual facts, and I know I’m missing some key pieces. This is just to illustrate my approach, and I’m not making any decisions that rely on the accuracy of the information, so I didn’t do any serious digging.
Based solely on this post and the comments here, and on Wikipedia (which previously stated the jury was all-white until someone corrected it), I don’t think any of the parties involved were making good decisions that day, if they knew how to make good decisions. Supposedly Anthony was taking shelter in the tent of a rival school during a thunderstorm over the track meet, and Metcalf and his brother were trying to kick him out. I don’t know what words were spoken. Metcalf apparently escalated the conflict from verbal to physical, which was stupid, but a relatively common stupid that usually doesn’t result in anyone dying. Anthony evidently brought a weapon and escalated the conflict further. I’m not sure why he thought either of those things would be a good idea. My martial arts teacher teaches that the first two rules of a weapons fight are “Don’t get in a weapons fight.”
Questions:
Why did the conflict start? What were they saying to each other?
Why did Anthony bring a weapon to the track meet?
Did Anthony seriously think his life was in danger in that situation? If so, what contributed to that impression? Is there any reason to think he was right? (I’m skeptical, considering how public the event was, but maybe the school had a history of racially-motivated violence that Anthony was aware of?)
Anthony was apparently the captain of his track team. What kind of leadership skills did his school teach him?
What did Anthony’s parents teach him about handling conflict? What did the Metcalfs’ parents teach them?
How many people were around them? What were they doing during the altercation leading up to Anthony pulling the knife?
Should we be paying more attention how schools foster sports rivalry?
Is someone going to try to get the U.S. to ban knives, like some countries have done?
Why did the conflict start? What were they saying to each other? By all accounts, Anthony was in s competing team’s space, and was asked, then told, to leave.
Why did Anthony bring a weapon to the track meet? because he’s a punk?
Did Anthony seriously think his life was in danger in that situation? If so, what contributed to that impression? Is there any reason to think he was right? (I’m skeptical, considering how public the event was, but maybe the school had a history of racially-motivated violence that Anthony was aware of?) No. The self-defense claim was an after-the-fact defense contrivance. He was armed (illegally). His victim wasn’t.
Anthony was apparently the captain of his track team. What kind of leadership skills did his school teach him? I don’t see how this incident has anything to do with leadership.
What did Anthony’s parents teach him about handling conflict? What did the Metcalfs’ parents teach them? Who knows? But Anthony was in a space he didn’t belong in, and was asked to leave 15 times.
How many people were around them? What were they doing during the altercation leading up to Anthony pulling the knife? Lots. Each team had its own area.
Should we be paying more attention how schools foster sports rivalry? Nah. 1) It’s natural 2) It’s fun. and 3) It escalating to violence is rare.
Is someone going to try to get the U.S. to ban knives, like some countries have done? They can try, but the 2nd Amendment applies to knives too.
In addition to all this, Kamelo Anthony refused to leave when asked to and did so by challenging Austin Metcalf with “make me” responses to the request and then “touch me and see what happens” — while he had his hand on the knife inside his backpack… That is essentially giving “permission” to make contact, so even the argument of a battery (unlawful, unwanted contact) fails as justification.
Attorney Andrew Branca posted several videos on this trial that went into great detail in evaluating the situation against established self-defense law.
“No. The self-defense claim was an after-the-fact defense contrivance. He was armed (illegally). His victim wasn’t.”
Just to add to this, the self-defense claim had a couple of serious holes.
First is that while Texas is a stand your ground state, you can only stand your ground in a place that you are allowed to be. I think it is relatively uncontroversial that Anthony had no business being where he was, and was told to leave. I think it’s possible that he had a duty to retreat.
Second is that one of the standards in self defense is that a reasonable person would conclude that there was an immediate risk of grievous bodily harm, whether Anthony felt threatened was irrelevant, the question was whether a reasonable person would feel a shove from someone telling them to leave a space was such a risk, and it really wasn’t.
Third was, as Mike said, all the witnesses were consistent in saying that Anthony kept on trying to pick a fight, not only refusing to leave, but saying the only way he would was if they got physical, which gives the situation the basis for provocation, which is another way self-defense fails.
And fourth, that also gives basis for premeditation, which is another-nother way to fail self-defense: He not only brought a knife somewhere he knew he wouldn’t be welcome, but picked a fight, and the moment someone stepped up to him, he stabbed that person in the chest.
What I don’t get, and what we might never learn, is why Anthony chose to kill someone that day. Not all things like this end up making sense, people are complicated, and in a country of 350,000,000 people, every day the variations on the stupid things people do would boggle the imagination. But it would be easier to swallow if the killer knew his victim, and there was something that had gone on there, because the alternative is just so… fucking senseless.
I would guess that he wasn’t trying to kill him, or at least didn’t think through what the consequences of stabbing him would be. Just an impulsive act that moral luck turned into a murder. I nearly killed someone in a high school chemistry class. The class jerk had knocked my hand up while I was holding a beaker with a mystery powder and asked him, “What’s this stuff?” When he hit my hand, the power went all over my clothes and face, and the guy stood in front of me laughing. I was pissed, and I flipped what was left in the beaker into his big open mouth. He immediately started gagging and grabbing his throat, and had to be rushed to the nurses office, where they sent him to have his stomach pumped.
It turned out that the powder was naptholeen, what they make moth balls out of, but it could have been cyanide. Fortunately my teacher thought the whole episode was funny. “You know,” he said,”you might have killed him.” Stephen Sumner was the kid’s name.
As in the tunnel?!
“Just an impulsive act”
Humans regularly engage in impulsive acts but this doesn’t seem to happen nearly as often as statistics would imply if it was mere impulse. Going out of one’s way mindless of likely causing provocations (or worse, content to provoke a confrontation) while knowingly armed is the kind of “impulsive” act and then refusing reasonable demands to leave a space….that mindset requires a very specific level of neglect by parents or, worse, encouragement by parents and immediate community.
My only question regarding this incident is was there some rule about not allowing someone from one team into another team’s tent? From what I understand, Karmelo Anthony took shelter from a thunderstorm in the tent belonging to Austin Metcalf’s team. He was told to leave.
Is there a reason why they could not let him shelter from a thunderstorm until it died down?
I don’t question what happened later. Karmelo should not have pulled a knife (I’m told it was a Swiss Army Knife.) and he certainly shouldn’t have stabbed Austin, but, perhaps, the altercation could have been avoided if they’d let Karmelo keep dry for a few minutes?
Was there some reason why they could not?
No. They were being assholes. As teenage kids tend to be. The coach (who is black) has a lot of responsibility here.
Testimony by both prosecution and defense witnesses is that it is established practice that you do not go into another team’s tent (pop-up shelter) at a meet. The same for “rain” as it was testified that the rain had stopped at the time.
Austin Metcalf was asked by his coach to keep outsiders out of their tent Which he was doing when stabbed. Other members of the team, over a short period of time, had told Anthony “you can’t be in here”.
The knife was not “Swiss Army” or a “multi-tool” as some reports state. It was a locking blade folding knife with approx 5″ blade. A photo of a similar one was posted by a reporter who was in the courtroom and saw the knife when presented as evidence; that photo by the reporter was provided in one of Branca’s posts on the trial.
Thank you for clarifying. So much being passed around that I don’t know what’s true and what’s not.
Based on the artist’s sketch, and the reporter’s testimony (which contradicts the sketch!) and the expected price point of a teenager’s budget, I’m guessing this was it:
https://www.bladehq.com/item–Smith-Wesson-Extreme-Ops-Liner-Lock–174754
Ish…. Like Jack said, they could have. But the tents weren’t so far away from each other that it was actually a problem to go to his own. And those tents are like locker rooms in arenas… There’s a lot of barely secured valuables, strategy being discussed, and levels of nudity. I can’t blame them for not wanting someone wearing another school’s clothes in there.
I don’t think people are looking at the scale of the problem.
In my state, 23 people were shot at a party. You probably didn’t even hear about it. It was black-on-black violence, so it doesn’t even make local news for more than a few days.
https://www.news9.com/crime/arcadia-lake-shooting-edmond
In Ohio, 12 people were shot at a party.
https://www.wlwt.com/article/multiple-people-shot-near-festival-in-toledo/71514040
In Missouri, teens attacked a Catholic ‘family festival’ with bear spray, beating police officers. It took 3 agencies to bring things under control.
https://vidmax.com/video/238326-chaos-at-family-festival-teens-assault-cops-unleash-bear-spray-flash-ghost-gun-in-suburban-kansas-city-nightmare
Last weekend in Chicago, 22 people were shot, just a typical weekend in Chicago.
https://abc7chicago.com/live-updates/chicago-shootings-weekend-1-shot-0-killed-gun-violence-city-police-department-says-live-news-update/19245394/
These are just things that happen on a typical day in America in the black community. This is the baseline of violence. What Red State published is not inflammatory. It is a reasonable prediction and a warning that the Democratic Party will likely try to weaponize this. If dozens of people shot is normal for a weekend in our cities, what will happen if the Democratic Party (or the Chinese) pay a bunch of professional protesters to organize ‘rallies’ for Karmelo Anthony in a dozen US cities simultaneously and conveniently provide pallets of bricks along the ‘protest’ route near local businesses? The ‘protesters’ don’t even have to believe in this stuff, an opportunity to loot and run wild for a ’cause’ will have great appeal.
It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the argument is. Imagine every major news outlet starts the evening news with “Protests in 35 major cities over the racist Karmelo Anthony ruling. How can black Americans feel safe in their own towns when they are denied the right to defend themselves from racist mobs? Democrats complain that President Trump is keeping the Department of Justice from investigating. A federal district court judge in Rhode Island has ordered the Attorney General to investigate, but the Trump administration is appealing that decision.” A large number of people will adopt that opinion about the situation. Remember when the media convinced the majority of Americans that the leading Republican candidate for President needed to withdraw because his father rented a vacation cabin at a place that might have had a word spray painted on a rock that could have been a racial slur? If they did that, how can you suggest that they couldn’t convince a significant portion of the Democratic population that this ruling is racist and requires a leadership change in Washington D.C.?
Correct. It’s not conservatives wanting riots. They’ve just learned how these riots and the narratives used to fuel them.
“It was black-on-black violence, so it doesn’t even make local news for more than a few days.”
Inveterate dummy, Jasmine Crockett, is quoted as saying “black women live in agony every day that I promise the Metcalfs have never lived through”.
My response was that statistically black mothers have lost more sons to black murderers than the Metcalfs have…so she accidentally has a point. But since that isn’t the point she was trying to make, then Crockett is an unbelievable monster. (Or just very very stupid)
Both.
Rep. Jasmine took to her podcast after Tuesday’s verdict to make false claims about the trial and its jury as she continues to stir up racial hatredL .
“I’m not necessarily convinced — not that I could tell you the name of one person on this jury — that we had 12 impartial White folk out of Collin County sitting on a jury for this young black man,” she said, exhibiting her empathy for the convicted murderer.”
jvb
“Blah blah blah blah *county name* (because counties always sound rural and backwards) blah blah*
Hope you understood that *county name* means it’s backwards and rural so it must be populated by white people from the 1820s.
sure they will martyrized him, we will see all his baby pictures, but none of him plunging the knife into the victims chest.
It seems like much in the event points to premeditation on Karmelo’s part, though that probably can’t be proven without an admission or other evidence.
He brought a forbidden weapon, and not just a tiny Swiss Army knife of the “cut string or open an envelope” type, but one considerably larger than even a typical folding knife for pocket carry, which normally top out at about a 2-1/2″ to 3″ blade.
He doggedly provoked the incident, and then triggered the final act with his hand hidden and holding the knife and a challenge to “touch me and see what happens”.
He seemed to be immediately ready for the police officers with an expectation (though a childishly naive one) of the ability to claim self-defense.
His defenders are of the same sort that plague the efforts of DAs getting murder convictions in heavily black jurisdictions like Fulton county (Atlanta), etc. It’s understood by those in their criminal justice systems, and statistically supported, that many black jurors will not vote to convict a black man for murder (especially if the death penalty is on the table), even with overwhelming evidence.
Karmelo Anthony is planning to appeal the verdict according to the NY Post. Not a whole lot of details here on which legal grounds; allowing myself a little speculation I expect his attorney to file a Bason challenge based on the jury selection.
https://nypost.com/2026/06/10/us-news/karmelo-anthony-appeals-murder-conviction-after-family-supporters-claimed-racism/