Karmelo Anthony’s self-defense claim in the stabbing death of fellow teen Austin Metcalf in Texas won’t get him acquitted of murder charges — in spite of raising $600,000 for a big-name lawyer, a veteran defense attorney claimed.
The 18-year-old from Frisco, who is black, is charged with first-degree murder for fatally stabbing 17-year-old Metcalf, who died in his twin brother’s arms on April 2, 2025.
Karmelo Anthony walks free on a $250,000 bond under house arrest in the stabbing death of Austin Metcalf.
Anthony plans to claim he was acting in self-defense when he pulled a knife and stabbed Metcalf, whom his family said the defendant flagrantly attacked during a dispute over a seat in the bleachers.
But Anthony will be hard-pressed to prove he was actually in life-threatening danger, said Randy Zelin, an attorney of 38 years who is not involved in the case.
“You can’t be justified in killing someone with a knife and stabbing them in the chest if they were not about to use immediately use deadly force on you,” said Zelin, who has served as both a prosecutor and defense attorney and is an adjunct professor at the Cornell School of Law.
Authorities say Metcalf, who attended a rival school, did put his hands on Anthony, but he merely tried to shove him out from under his team’s awning.
Anthony told the victim, “Touch me and see what happens” with a hand in his backpack, ready to pull the knife and stab Metcalf at the slightest provocation, prosecutors allege.
“What the defendant was doing with a knife on him, I think, is going to be telling. So you have the absence of the ability to use deadly force versus someone having deadly force immediately on hand,” Zelin said.
But Anthony has one ace in the hole, Zelin added: his race.
Anthony’s defense has tried to cast Metcalf as a white bully flagrantly assaulting a black victim, with the murder charge the product of a racist justice system.
The narrative turned the case into a culture war, with supporters donating more than $600,000 to pay for Anthony’s big-name Dallas lawyer, Mike Howard.
Zelin said playing up the racial dynamic shows how desperate his case is.
“As a defense attorney … my job is to get my client off by any means, reasonably and legally necessary. So if I can play the race card and I can be the second coming of Johnnie Cochran, and my client walks out of the courthouse with me, either acquitted or with a hung jury, I’ll sleep that night.”
Jury selection in Anthony’s trial began Monday, and attorneys are expected to deliver opening statements on Thursday.
