Convicted killer Karmelo Anthony has won his first legal battle as he seeks to have his conviction for killing Austin Metcalf thrown out.
The 19-year-old was convicted in June and sentenced to 35 years behind bars for murdering the 17-year-old athlete at a high school track meet in April of last year.
On Wednesday, the trial judge who presided over the case was removed from the case as Anthony appeals his conviction.
His legal team argued that a retrial was warranted in part because state District Judge John Roach enforced overly strict courtroom rules and gave an interview after the trial was over.
A new judge will be assigned for Thursday’s hearing on the retrial request.
Anthony attended the hearing in Collin County wearing a green jump suit. His parents and Metcalf´s parents also were in the courtroom.
After the order to remove Roach, Anthony supporters cheered in the courthouse hallways and outside the building.
The two teenagers were at a football stadium in Frisco, Texas, for a track meet when a verbal confrontation under a high school tent between the boys escalated.
Anthony is currently serving a 35 year sentence after being convicted of murder in the summer
Austin Metcalf was attending a track meet inside Kuykendall Stadium when he was fatally attacked
Supporters of Anthony are seen here cheering on the steps of the courthouse on Wednesday
Prosecutors said Anthony provoked Metcalf, and witnesses testified that Anthony was the aggressor.
Anthony at one point reached inside a bag and replied: ‘Touch me and see what happens,’ according to a police report.
As Metcalf leaned in to shove the teen, Anthony stabbed Metcalf through the heart with a folding knife hidden in his backpack.
The knife pierced through his bone in the center of his chest and punctured the right side of his heart, a medical examiner testified.
Jurors in Dallas, Texas, took less than three hours to convict Anthony of murder – rejecting a lesser option for manslaughter.
Judge Roach appeared for an interview with WFAA in the aftermath and said he believed the jury made the right decision.
He told the outlet: ‘Yes, they did, because they were picked based upon the law, they listened to the facts,’ he said. ‘It happened in this courtroom, and they got a verdict.’
The judge then went on to say he believed Anthony came off as a nice person during their brief interactions, but will have to live with the consequences of his actions.
Judge John Roach defended the jury’s verdict in an interview with WFAA
The tent where the stabbing occurred is seen here inside Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco in April of last year
‘He seems like a nice young man who committed a crime, and he understands today more than any day before the consequences of committing a crime like he did,’ Roach told the network.
He added that court officials began preparing for the trial eight months in advance, anticipating the extraordinary public interest in the case, and he is satisfied with how the proceedings turned out.
‘As long as I follow the law, I sleep well at night,’ he said.
Anthony had originally faced between five to 99 years in prison for the murder, but prosecutors agreed to allow the jury to consider ‘sudden passion’ as a factor when determining his sentence.
‘Sudden passion’ is a legal term in Texas that allows a criminal to argue they were in an intense emotional state when they committed wrongdoing.
It would have reduced Anthony’s sentence to that of a second-degree felony for which he could have served as little as two years behind bars.
However, the jury rejected the argument and spent less than three hours passing its guilty verdict, and another roughly two and a half hours before they handed down their sentence.
