The family, friends, and community of Karmelo Anthony—a young, Black male convicted of first-degree murder in the stabbing of Austin Metcalf, a young, White male—maintain he acted in self-defense.
On June 9, a jury which had no Black people, after deliberating less than three hours, found Karmelo Anthony, now 19, guilty of murder and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. He will be eligible for parole after serving half the sentence. He had faced anywhere from five to 99 years.
His attorneys have filed an appeal.
Too many questions linger, despite the verdict and sentencing since the incident with Austin Metcalf, argue attorneys, activists, legal analysts, and observers.
Karmelo Anthony and Austin Metcalf were both 17 when the incident occurred. Karmelo, was accused of stabbing Austin Metcalf, during a Frisco Independent School District track meet on April 2, 2025.
Investigators say the two teens, who attended different schools and did not know each other, got into an altercation at Kuykendall Stadium before Karmelo stabbed Austin, who later died at the hospital.
The trial began with jury selection on June 1 in Collin County. While it is unclear how many prospective Black jurors were part of the initial jury pool, various media outlets reported that defense attorneys objected to the prosecution’s removal of two Black prospective jurors from the pool, but the judge allowed it.
The case centered on whether Karmelo acted in self-defense. White youth tend to receive sympathy and the benefit of the doubt, but Black youth, historically, get the book thrown at them.
Wearing shirts that read “#BelieveKarmelo,” his parents Kayla Hayes and Andrew Anthony expressed their feelings about the verdict and their family’s ordeal in an interview with The Breakfast Club’s Front Page News anchor, Mimi Brown on June 11.
“Absolutely not,” they exclaimed when asked if they believe their son received a fair trial.
“And we’re going to keep fighting. We will not stop fighting for justice for my son,” Ms. Hayes said through tears.
“It’s hard for us right now, and I’ve had my moments,” said Mr. Anthony. He noted that despite their son working two jobs, still graduating high school and never being in trouble, he was up against an unjust smear campaign.
“He’s a wonderful son. He’s a wonderful student … a 3.7 GPA; worked two jobs … he was actually taking online classes during all of this and still held a great GPA going through this traumatic time,” both said in tandem.
They told Ms. Brown they didn’t feel the world has not received an accurate description of who their son really is. His face was plastered all over, though he was still a minor, they received threats, and had to leave their home for their safety, they stated.
Karmelo, his father said, did everything he was supposed to do. He had a job, he went to school. “I kept him busy, too, and this whole situation, the reality of this is that somebody literally walked in his life, no, literally walked into his life. He did everything by the law, and look where we’re at,” said Mr. Anthony, as his wife wept.
He could still picture the way the verdict was read, and got emotional, but chose to hold his emotions, said Mr. Anthony. “I had to humble myself. It wasn’t just for me and my family, it was for all of us,” he said.
“So, I played that game, and I’m just letting you know that game don’t work. It’s not for us. The justice system is not for us. They can’t say we did anything out of what was told. We followed all the instructions and we followed the law. It just don’t work for us,” he said.
“Everybody lied,” Mr. Anthony stated. “Perjury. Everybody did, basically just did it,” he said. “All of the witnesses’ statements and stories were inconsistent, so we’re thinking that the jury is going to notice that, but they already had their mind made up when they sat in that courtroom, their mind was made up already,” argued Ms. Hayes.
The couple, who have three other children, pushed back against what they argue is misinformation circulating, from claims that they bought a house and other trinkets with money raised for Karmelo’s defense, among other harassment, which forced them to move.
“We were in a blessed community. I hope a lot of people get this message, it don’t matter where you’re at. It don’t matter where you’re at, because we were supposed to be in the safest place, but it’s like they’re telling us that you could be assaulted, but you better not fight back. This is what this case is saying. …,” he said.
News Nation reported from the courtroom that Karmelo’s attorneys argued he acted in self-defense and reacted in fear during a “split second” moment after Austin made physical contact with him. Prosecutors argued that deadly force has to be “immediately necessary” to be legal.
Attorney Sadiyah A. Evangelista Karriem of Houston, Texas, a criminal defense lawyer, noted that Karmelo was 17 at the time of the incident but tried as a 19-year-old.
She raised constitutional concerns about the jury, arguing that the Sixth Amendment guarantees an impartial jury, and the spirit of that jury is drawn from a fair cross-section of the community, and that a racially charged case involving a Black defendant, absent Black jurors, was deeply troubling.
“We know that the case, prior to the trial, was a very racially charged case,” she said. That raises a fair question of what the Constitution provides, she said, adding that the strikes of Black potential jurors on the panel may be an appealable issue for Karmelo.
Another aspect is the murder vs. manslaughter, she said. “The jury found that he ‘knowingly’ caused the death rather than in manslaughter, recklessly caused the death, and then they refused the sudden passion argument, so you’re talking about two separate rejections of mitigation,” Atty. Evangelista Karriem told The Final Call.
“You’re talking about self-defense, and then you’re talking about sudden passion … and so when you talk about self-defense in Texas, you’re talking about reasonableness and proportionality,” she stated, adding, Texas allows for deadly force when a person reasonably believes it’s immediately necessary.
In the context of sentencing, she feels there was some inequality and she raised questions about other concerns including how fast the verdict came back.
In another Texas case that is drawing parallels, Caysen Allison, now 21, was sentenced to 10 years in prison without parole after being convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jose “Joe” Luis Ramirez Jr..
Both were 18 years old and in high school when that incident occurred. Caysen is White and Jose, Latino. The incident happened at Belton High School and was the result of a “bathroom brawl.”
According to reports, Caysen claimed self-defense. However, though he was found guilty, his sentence is 10 years in prison without the possibility of parole, after being convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jose.
Data has shown that “Stand Your Ground,” or “self-defense laws” are not always applied equally when it comes to Blacks and Whites in America. “Civil rights activists, celebrities, and politicians have expressed outrage at the case, with some saying that Anthony’s conviction highlights a clear double standard in self-defense claims in the United States:
If a white person kills a Black person, courts (and white juries) are more likely to rule the killing justified than if the situation were reversed,” wrote Arianna Coghill, an assistant news and engagement writer, in an article published in June on Mother Jones.
“According to a 2021 study from Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates against gun violence, homicides are deemed justified more often, in nearly every state, when the shooter is white and the victim is Black.
A study from the Urban Institute found that homicides with a Black shooter and a white victim were ruled justified self-defense in a little more than 1 percent of cases. For a white shooter and Black victim, the figure jumps to 11.4 percent,” Coghill writes.
For Los Angeles-based activist Dr. Melina Abdullah of Black Lives Matters Grassroots, she also has concerns about the Karmelo Anthony case. Part of her concerns was the gag order placed early on in the case, the exclusion of cameras from the courtroom, and the hostile environment outside the courthouse.
“I think one of the big misses from media is it should have been more aggressively challenged that there were no cameras allowed in the courtroom. It should be aggressively challenged what photos of Karmelo and what photos of the Metcalfs are being put out there,” she argued.
At the end of the day, the story is not done, she said, citing the appeals process.
“We want to make sure people pray fervently for the Anthony family,” she said. “They’ve raised their children to be good students and good human beings and we have to throw our arms around them and make sure that they are held up and when you see things that are not true or are disparaging, even this (AI generated) photo they’ve got out of Karmelo, tell people to take those down,” she added.
Dominique Alexander, president of the Next Generation Action Network (NGAN), had been a spokesperson for the Anthony family since before the trial. He said the family was “looking forward to the opportunity to present the facts in a court of law.”
He argued that the verdict illustrated “Black lives do not matter in Collin County,” the location of the trial. “After Trayvon Martin and so many countless names, it has shown us that Black life is not safe in Collin County,” Mr. Alexander added.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has warned that real justice for Black people is ultimately not found in the White man’s courts and that integration and fighting to get closer to the slavemasters children did not and does not help black people.
Minister Farrakhan spoke about real justice in a 2015 interview with Felisha Monet of Miami’s WEDR 99 JAMZ radio show, during the “Justice Or Else!” tour ahead of the 20th Anniversary of The Million Man March in Washington, D.C. held on 10.10.15.
“’Justice’ isn’t going to a toilet with a White man, ‘justice’ is not going to school, sitting with White children! ‘Justice’ is getting the knowledge that will allow you to provide for yourself! They never wanted you to have that kind of knowledge.
So here we are. … But the fight is coming to an end: We’re in the ‘championship rounds’ now. And we will win! Real ‘justice’ comes from God because the White man doesn’t have it in him to give it,” Minister Farrakhan said.