No.Nonsense.

Before weighing in on the case of Karmelo Anthony, I have been sitting back to see what pops up next. It seems weekly that there is a new story. We tend to believe that when the verdict comes down in court that it is over, but for this case it just brings more debate.

For those not in the know, 17 year old Austin and Hunter Metcalf, identical twins, were participating in a track meet in Frisco, Texas in 2025 when Karmelo Anthony, a competitor from a rival school, came into their school’s tent and sat down. When asked by Austin to leave, Karmelo’s response was to challenge Austin to “make me”. There was a shove by Austin to Karmelo that was reported by multiple witnesses as barely enough to move him. Karmelo’s response was to take a knife and stab Austin in the heart, killing him.

He was convicted last month of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Since that time, there has been an ongoing discussion that the conviction was unfair. There have been protests in favor of releasing him and a lot of vitriol about the injustice. There has been some hateful rhetoric about Austin and his family including calls for his twin brother to be charged with assault- there is no evidence that he did anything against Karmelo. Austin’s grave has been vandalized and his family has been SWATTed eight times.

Why? Because there was not a single African American on the jury.

This was not a homogeneous jury as the protesters have suggested. Of the 12 jurors and six alternates, there were two Asians and five others were Middle Eastern, Indian, and Hispanic. That means 7 of the 18 were non-white. These jurors were seated with input from both the prosecution and the defense. The African Americans who were in the final tally and ultimately dismissed either explicitly stated they could not convict an African American defendant or they were educators who it was felt could not be impartial because the murder happened on school grounds at a school function and involved students.

Is the makeup of the jury something that could be grounds for appeal? It’s possible though it would have to be shown they were dismissed only because of their race and not for any other valid reason.

But what is being lost in the protests is that the jury convicted him after only three hours of deliberation, based on the evidence presented in court. His use of a self defense argument was rejected in the face of that evidence.

Subsequently, the judge allowed the release of the videos that were shown during the trial that showed the interaction was not of a nature that would have warranted the level of reaction from Karmelo. Furthermore, an additional video showed him fleeing the scene just after the stabbing which attests to a recognition of guilt.

In all of the legal discussions I have listened to over the past month, for self defense to stand, the response must be proportional to the threat and the person claiming self defense cannot instigate the altercation. Both of these points disqualify Karmelo’s claim because he was the initial aggressor and his response was beyond what was necessary to neutralize any threat.

The parents on both sides have not purported themselves well in the aftermath. Austin’s dad made some unfortunate racial comments post verdict. I can give him some grace that he had to bury his son. I can’t imagine the grief and despair and, frankly, anger that accompanies your child being killed. I have been with parents in similar situations and they are willing to burn it all down for justice for their child. It still brought sentiments into the discussion that lessen the impact of his justified anger because of the inexcusable words.

On the other side, Karmelo’s parents have engaged in a campaign of victimhood. Their son was the victim that day at the track meet. Their son is the victim of a judicial system that has discriminated against him. Their son’s story that we have been told from every other witness, according to them, is not the correct one and he was not fleeing the scene- he was running into the arms of his teacher because he was scared.

My question for them is why their son had a knife at a track meet. My question for them is why they abandoned their son to stand in the courtroom alone as he was convicted and sentenced. My question for them is why, if they want to stand up for their son, they have elicited the most divisive figures to speak for them. My question for them is why there are donations of more than $600 thousand dollars for his defense, raised since his conviction, but he has claimed destitution for his appeal.

My additional questions come for those potential jurors who said they could not convict him no matter what the evidence showed. There should never be a circumstance where consequences are mitigated based on the color of a person’s skin. If the evidence shows a crime then there should be a judgement for the crime.

In the United Kingdom we saw what happens when snap judgements are made based on a perverted view of racial victimization when Henry Nowak, the white guy, died on a sidewalk, dismissed by the police officers standing over him as the brown skinned perpetrator claimed he was the one wronged in a case of racially motivated aggression. In the case of Karmelo Anthony, that same prejudice didn’t impede justice.

I am not discounting that there are issues of race that can come into play in the criminal court system. But to completely dismiss all personal responsibility because of the color of the defendant’s skin is wrong on every level. What this case comes down to is that one person walked away unscathed while the other bled out on the ground with a hole to his heart.

There is a famous scene in “A Time to Kill” where Matthew McConaughey is defending Samuel L Jackson who killed the men who brutally raped his daughter. He asks the jurors to close their eyes and draws a visual image of the brutalities that were done to this little girl. He then says, “Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body, soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood — left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine that she’s white.”

I’m going to change this closing argument up a bit. “Can you see him? Can you see him lying on the ground, blood pouring from his chest. His brother pleading with him to not leave him. His brother who is a carbon copy of him, screaming in agony for him. Can you see him as he struggles to take his next breath, choking on his own blood. Now imagine he’s your son.”

This jury got it right.