Karmelo Anthony: Bodycam, 911 audio show aftermath of stabbing — Katie Pavlich Tonight

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Just moments ago we obtained new evidence from the Carmelo Anthony trial including body camera video and a 9-1-1 call audio from the moments after Anthony Anthony stabbed 17 year old Austin Metcalf to death. In the 9-1-1 call you can hear by senders trying to revive Metcalfe. We want to warn you this audio may be difficult to hear. Here's a portion. [00:00:21] Speaker 2: He is laying here. He is starting to go unconscious. How old is he? High school age so maybe 15, 16, 17. Okay. Is he awake? No, he's going unconscious. Okay. Is he breathing? Not right now. Breathing? No, he's not. He's not breathing at all? No. Okay. Where was he stabbed? In his chest. Okay. I've got some coming, okay? Stay on the phone with me, alright? [00:00:50] Speaker 3: Is the assailant still nearby? Okay, I'm here. Is the assailant still nearby? Okay, I'm here. Is the assailant still nearby? Stay with me, Austin. Stay with me, Austin. Stay with me, Austin. Hey, sir. Is he breathing? Yes, ma'am. Is the assailant still nearby? [00:01:08] Speaker 1: This is the first time the public is seeing these images on your screen since cameras were not allowed in the courtroom during trial. Carmelo Anthony, who is convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison, can be seen running from the tent where him and Metcalfe struggled. The knife that was used to strike Metcalfe once in the heart is a lot larger than many of Anthony's defenders made us believe. Later, during Anthony's arrest, he was very cooperative with police and can be heard crying as he admits to stabbing Metcalfe. [00:01:39] Speaker 4: He put his hands on me. I told him not to. He put his hands on me. [00:01:46] Speaker 1: Joining us now is Randy Zellen, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor and Jesse Weber, host of Jesse Weber Live. Great to see both of you. So, Jesse, let's start with you. You know, hearing the audio, looking at the body camera footage gives you a new perspective, given that we haven't seen this before. [00:02:03] Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it just highlights how incredibly sad this is, how incredibly tragic this is, the chaotic nature of it. I also saw outlets publishing some of the more gruesome photos in the aftermath of this. I don't think it changes the legal case. I don't look at this and say, oh, my gosh, I don't understand how Anthony was convicted. But it definitely humanizes this. It puts a face on this. And even hearing the body cam footage where you do hear Anthony say, I'm not alleged. I did it. That was a key piece of evidence for the prosecution. But you also hear him crying there. This was an incident that should not have happened. And it's a tragedy that should not have happened. But, you know, I do look at this from a legal perspective. And when I think about the jury seeing all this, I do wonder, and I'm curious, Randy's perspective on this as well. Is the defense going to say this was too prejudicial, that there were certain aspects of this the jury shouldn't have seen, that it was, you know, seeing this amount of blood or seeing, you know, the stab wounds. Is that necessary? Did that inflame them? Did that influence their decision anyway? I don't know if that's going to be a winning argument, but that's just something from a legal perspective. But I just see this more from a human perspective. [00:03:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like they could make that case, but it is part of the crime. Randy, what to Jesse's question, what stands out to you the most in this released spotty camera footage? [00:03:22] Speaker 6: At the risk of sounding like a Monday morning quarterback, which, quite frankly, after 38 years, I think I have earned the right to do. The question for me is, what the hell were you thinking when you chose to take this case to trial? And don't tell me it was because you were playing the race card. In the O.J. Simpson case, O.J. Simpson's defense was the real killer is still out there. In this case, you have the killer admitting I'm the killer. You have the killer admitting I was not justified because I met deadly. I met undeadly force with deadly force. He put his hands on me. Putting your hands on me doesn't give me the right to stab you. That is meeting undeadly force with deadly force. When you see the video of this man running away, this young man running away, that is consciousness of guilt. When you hear him saying, no, I'm not the alleged killer. I am the killer. It just leaves you thinking, yes, the human tragedy, how this was so unnecessary, but from a legal standpoint, my God, whether it was $6 million or $600,000 in a GoFundMe account, this case should have never gone to trial. [00:04:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, Jessie, I mean, there's been a lot of narrative building around this case when we haven't seen all of the evidence that was presented to the jury. Some of that is coming out now, which of course we were just showing and listening to. But the size of the knife that Carmela Anthony used has been downplayed in the media by Anthony's supporters. People said that it was a tool or a Swiss army knife. That's not the kind of knife that it is. It's a much larger knife than that. We even have members of Congress like Jasmine Crockett weighing in and saying that Anthony is innocent, despite him saying that he did this. What about the narrative around this when people don't have in any case the same information that the jury does, but they think that they know what [00:05:25] Speaker 5: happened? Two points to that. This is why you need cameras in every courtroom. Let me say that again. This is why you need cameras in every courtroom. You don't have to see every single crime scene photo, but transparency is the key. Transparency is the, you know, the cure to misinformation. Look, that knife became a key issue in this case. You heard the defense really talk about the size of it and saying it wasn't necessarily legal for him to have. He had a right to have it. But the problem for the defense is it was never articulated why he had it at that moment in time. That is clearly a deadly weapon. As Randy has said and has been said countless times during the course of this case, when you use self-defense, when you use deadly force, it has to be proportional. And using that weapon, considering what he was up against and he claimed, you know, his defense claimed that it was people that were larger than him and that they were surrounding him. And then you couple that with the wound and people can go on that online and now see it. I think that proved to be very difficult to argue that this was a case of valid and reasonable self-defense. [00:06:26] Speaker 1: But Randy, I mean, doesn't reasonable self-defense vary from state to state? [00:06:32] Speaker 6: Well, not really, because from state to state, and I think what you might be touching upon is stand your ground laws where you have an obligation to retreat. But from state to state, it's pretty much proportionality, as Jesse mentioned, which means you meet force with force. You meet deadly force force with deadly force. That's proportionality. There is a reasonable person standard, which is what would a reasonable person do in this situation from a justification standpoint? So, no, I think across the board, this case would not have had a different result in a different state. You might have had a different result in a different state with a different defense attorney who might have seen the wisdom to negotiating either a reduced plea with the prosecution or negotiating a reduced sentence with a judge. [00:07:32] Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. So, Jesse, you know, on the sentencing aspect of it, of course, they they asked for the family, asked for some some mercy, given how young he is going to prison for 35 years. That was, you know, applicable in terms of what the jury was listening to. He was also cooperative, Carmelo Anthony, with police. He was clearly shaken up by what had just occurred, despite him admitting that he stabbed that calf and he died as a result of that. So in terms of of what we see moving forward and the issue of potential parole, does that aspect come [00:08:05] Speaker 5: into it at all? First of all, he's going to be in prison for a very long time. I think if you speak to attorneys in that jurisdiction, they don't see him getting out before 20 years. Now, I think there was a number of considerations the jury had here. One, the circumstances surrounding the stabbing, his age. But at the end of the day, this was a murder. And while there were those who thought that it should be less, there were others who thought that this should be more. There's no concrete test. There's no scientific test by which the jury has to go when you look at up to 99 years. I think that this is going to be a really difficult moment for him. I think this is going to be a very difficult life for him behind bars. I mean, let's be clear. He took someone else's life. That family's never going to have Austin there. But his life is also gone. I mean, his life is never going to be the same. And I, you know, it's interesting. The one thing I'll add is, and I don't know if we have time to talk about it, but hearing his voice, I've never heard him speak before. And I've never heard him cry before. I don't know if that would have had an effect if he took the stand and tried to make his case and tried to say what he was feeling. But this is why you see people, you know, in self-defense cases, take the stand and try to explain it. Randy, final word to you. His voice should have been [00:09:13] Speaker 6: heard as part of a mitigation package presented to a prosecutor and presented to a judge. And a plea disposition, a plea deal should have been made in this case. This case should have never gone to trial. [00:09:28] Speaker 1: All right. Well, as more of the evidence comes out, I'm sure we'll be covering it. Randy Zellen and Jesse Weber, thank you both for joining me. You got it.