The legal fight to free Karmelo Anthony hit a wall Friday night when a Texas judge shut down his last major avenue for challenging his murder conviction.
Presiding Judge Michael Chitty handed down the ruling after a hearing that dragged late into the evening, Fox 4 reported. The decision leaves Anthony’s conviction fully intact.
Anthony was found guilty of fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf, a killing that took place at a high school track meet back in April 2025.
At trial, defense lawyers pushed a self-defense theory, insisting Anthony’s actions were justified. A jury heard that argument and rejected it outright, delivering a guilty verdict instead.
That verdict didn’t end the legal battle. Anthony’s attorneys moved quickly to challenge the outcome, filing paperwork seeking to void the conviction entirely and start over with a new trial.
Central to their argument was a claim that Anthony never got a fair shake in court, a claim built on a handful of specific procedural complaints.
Judge Chitty weighed those complaints against the trial record before ruling against the defense in writing.
“Upon reviewing the motion, the record, the evidence and argument, the briefs, and the relevant case law, the Court has determined that the motion should be denied,” the judge’s order stated.
His written order left no ambiguity about the outcome. “It is therefore considered, ordered, and adjudged by the Court that the Motion for New Trial is denied,” the ruling read.
One of the defense’s core arguments involved closed-door discussions that occurred without Anthony present, sessions tied to former Collin County Judge John Roach.
Attorneys also argued that restrictions placed on who could enter the courtroom during the trial effectively stripped Anthony of his right to a public proceeding.
A separate flashpoint emerged during Friday’s arguments: a so-called “gentleman’s agreement” reached between prosecutors and defense counsel before trial.
Both sides had agreed to keep character evidence about Anthony and Metcalf out of the courtroom entirely.
That agreement later drew scrutiny once outside reporting surfaced allegations kept from jurors.
Those reports claimed Anthony had stalked a former girlfriend and exchanged messages showing a fixation with weapons.
Metcalf, too, faced posthumous allegations tied to the excluded evidence, with reports claiming he had previously been accused of racist conduct.
Toby Shook, a former prosecutor turned defense attorney, addressed the strategy behind that evidentiary agreement, explaining it was meant to keep jurors focused solely on what happened “under the tent” during the stabbing itself.
Anthony never testified in his own defense during the trial.
Shook nonetheless argued that taking the stand would have given Anthony his “only effective way” to lay out his self-defense claim directly to jurors.
With the appeal now denied, Anthony’s murder conviction and sentence stand as finalized outcomes of a case that has drawn intense national attention since Metcalf’s death.
