Karmelo Anthony Launches Legal War Over Stabbing Verdict

[00:00:00] Vinnie Palatan: The scene outside of the courthouse was tense. [00:00:05] Speaker 2: A story, a case, a trial that divided the community. Carmelo Anthony claiming self-defense [00:00:20] Vinnie Palatan: after he stabbed and killed Austin Metcalf. The jury rejected Carmelo's story, convicted him of [00:00:27] Speaker 3: murder and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. Now the aftermath of a trial the judge did not allow [00:00:39] Vinnie Palatan: the nation to see. Austin's father setting the internet on fire after live streaming his raw emotions and a public debate about what the surveillance video the judge kept from the public actually shows. And of course, the appeal. Will Carmelo Anthony get a second chance? So many reactions, so many unresolved issues after this dramatic verdict in Texas. No cameras inside the courtroom for the trial, now creating chaos after the trial. People are actually debating what the surveillance video showed, what the evidence means, what the witnesses testified to. Meanwhile, Austin Metcalf's father, raw and emotional, live streaming on the internet. What will happen next? I'm Vinnie Palatan. Let's investigate. The aftermath of the verdict and the trial in the Carmelo Anthony Austin Metcalf case has not calmed down at all. As a matter of fact, it may have turned up a little bit in terms of the intensity of the public debate that is happening now. And it's all because this judge made a mistake. A mistake when he banned cameras and microphones from inside the courtroom. When you have a case that the public is invested in, the public is debating and has caused conflict within your community. The remedy is transparency. Let the public see and hear all the evidence so they may understand, they may not agree with, but they may understand how the jury reached their verdict. But this judge did not do that, and we have chaos now. There is actual dispute about what the surveillance video shows. It's a piece of evidence that is part of a public record that everyone should have seen by now. They should have seen it during the course of the trial. That should have been televised. And all of a sudden, then, maybe some of the debate would go away because you have people saying that it shows one thing, and the other side is saying it shows something else, and maybe it shows absolutely nothing. But the public doesn't know because the public didn't see it, all because of the judge's mistake. We're still debating the evidence here. We're still debating what witnesses actually said, because no one is getting anything firsthand. You're getting it secondhand. And many of the people delivering the messages have an agenda, so everything gets shaded and twisted. That's why Court TV puts cameras and microphones in there, so the public can see and hear the evidence and make their own minds up. The judicial branch is part of our government. It doesn't belong to any judge. It doesn't belong to any lawyer. It belongs to the people. Speaking of people, something else happened in this case. The judge issued a gag order, which, you know, there's a First Amendment right to speech, and the gag order is something that should be narrowly addressed. And Austin's father, his son was stabbed to death, and he hasn't been able to talk about this. Well, he finally did in a live stream that everyone is talking about, a whole rollercoaster of emotion and issues that he is talking about. And some of those pieces of what he's saying, extremely controversial from both sides. And everyone is reacting to this. So let's start there. There was a podcast on Rumble from Jinxed, SIP, interview with Sarah Fields. It was an interview, but it was really Austin's father speaking for, you know, 10 minutes at a clip in between questions. Here's part of what he said, and again, it's only a small part. Drew Anthony, Kayla, those are the parents of Carmelo Anthony. You're cowards. You wouldn't even show up for your son's sentencing or victim impact statement. You abandoned your kid. You left him there. I guess he's no more used to you because you can't get any more GoFundMe money or GoSendGo money. You are grifters. You should be ashamed of yourself. Okay, there's really bad blood between Austin's parents and Carmelo's parents. And he's making an allegation here that they abandoned him. Well, we don't know. No cameras, no microphones inside. We don't know who was where when all this was going on. But that's an allegation. It's a demonstration of how bad the feelings are in this community manifesting itself now through the victim's father. We go back. You never once admitted or took accountability. You tried to play victim. The real victim is the one who died, not the one who shoved the knife in his chest. It was a self-defense case, so both sides are claiming victimhood. The jury makes the determination based upon the evidence, the evidence that the public did not see. Here's another part that he addressed, which was a big part of this story initially. I come to pray with you and show the world we can close the gap of this unbelievable racial divide. And what did you do? You widen that gap even further. He kicks me out of a press conference. Oh, funny. I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be, but I left when asked. I didn't stab anyone. So there was a press conference that was held by Carmelo Anthony's parents early on in all of this. And Austin's father, Jeff Metcalf, goes to the press conference and he's trying to have some sort of communication with Carmelo's parents and gets tossed from the press conference. This was posted on X by J.D. Miles 11 in April of 2025. He's the one with the sling there. He's talking to the deputies. And you see there's the press conference that's taking place. And he's asked to leave. And, you know, you can think what you want. Was it appropriate, inappropriate for him to be there? But his whole point that he was making was, listen, from the beginning, I said this was not about race. I tried to, I guess, extend an olive branch by going there to meet, to talk, to discuss this together, to not make this a racial case. And that was part of his point in what he was saying in these rants on the live stream. I want to put something else up for you here because Carmelo Anthony's parents have now spoken. They went on The Breakfast Club, an extremely popular radio slash podcast show. Mimi Brown said, what, and that's who's interviewing them, what did Carmelo tell you happened that day at the track meet? This is Drew Anthony, what he says. I mean, he was sitting there seeing his friend. If you once get the reports and everything, he was actually, he was actually, his girlfriend's cousin invited him to the tent. So they went, invited him to the tent. It was just, hey, what's going on, such and such. It was raining. He sat there. Then the next thing you know, you have these two guys who approached him. Even seeing the video in court, it was like, I know you all see this. And this is the part that stuck out to me. Is that Drew Anthony, Carmelo's father, says, hey, listen, that video, that video shows what happened. But the question is, did it? Okay, so let's bring in court TV anchor Cody Thomas, who was there in Texas, was there inside the courtroom and actually saw this video because there's, this is the problem, right? We had no cameras in the courtroom, the evidence hasn't been released, so the public is going by what people are saying. And there are a lot of people out there with an agenda on both sides who can describe what they believe they saw. Cody, you have no agenda other than telling us what you saw and what you observed. So why don't you describe for us what you saw when the video was played and what was testified to about that video? Because this is an important piece of evidence. And, you know, you've got people saying that it's very clear in the video what happened here. [00:09:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, this is the most important piece of evidence. It's kind of the crux of the whole case here. But the thing about this video, Vinny, and the prosecutors admitted this before it was presented while that forensic video analyst was on the stand, is that the video is not the best quality. It's, first of all, it's one of those, you know how a football stadium is set up and you have the big, tall light post to light the whole stadium. It seems like it's a camera on one of those light posts on the opposite side from where everything's going down. So when it's, when it's zoomed out, it looks pretty good quality. But when you have to zoom all the way in like this on a little blip, you know, you're going to lose a lot of pixelation there. You're going to, it's going to be really grainy. So they zoomed in and, you know, now it looks like video. You see it like a 7-Eleven. It's real grainy. You can kind of make out what's going on. You can see the yellow memorial tent. But again, they admitted there's no real distinguishables here. You're not seeing facial features. You're not seeing the logos of brands on clothing. So it's just a low quality video. But you see at one point in time, you see in the bleachers, you see the yellow tent. It's kind of at the center, center mass of the video. And then they zoom out just a tad. So you can see Carmelo come up out of what's like the tunnel of the bleachers. You know, when you come up and you go sit around, he's coming up from under there. You see him come there and he stands there for a few seconds. And then he's walking towards this direction. So the tent's right here. He's walking towards the tent here. He's there at the tent for around two minutes. Then eventually you see Austin Metcalf and his three or four friends who are walking from the middle school where they were visiting their coach for a little bit that morning. They're walking from the opposite direction. So Carmelo's here for two minutes. They get there. And then the whole ordeal goes down in like four and a half to five minutes. But under the tent, you got to remember there's a whole team under this tent. You can't see rainfall. All you see is there's people under a tent. They look like these humanoid blobs. You can tell they're, you know, human beings, but it's just a bunch of masses, right? There's no, you're not looking at who's sitting down, who's standing up, especially if they're intermixed in there. You know, maybe if they're at the front, you can see if they're sitting on the bleachers, but all in the crowd, you can't really see much of anything. And then what the media analyst highlights at one point in time, you see kind of one of these darker figures. There's like a, there's like a jolt. And so they're saying that was kind of like the push. And then right after that little jolt, you see everyone disperse. And then, of course, they spot shadow. This was Carmelo because the other, I'm sure Memorial's team was in some dark gear because Carmelo had on a gray hoodie type situation. So he was in lighter clothing. And then you see him run off and they spotlight, they spot shadow him. And then you just see a bunch of disbursement. There was no, you know, you don't see two hands, one hand sitting down, two people towering over. There's not really any real identifiables other than there's Memorial tent. Here's a bunch of people under there. This is what they say was a little jolt, which was the push. And then a bunch of disbursement. That's all you really see. [00:12:19] Vinnie Palatan: So sometimes, and I've seen this in trials, you go through a video and you may play it for different witnesses who were there. And then they, having been there looking at the video, can kind of describe to you what's happening. Did any of that take place to try to clarify exactly what is going on and whether or not Carmelo Anthony is surrounded, whether or not, you know, a physical confrontation is, it's, you can really tell how forceful the physical confrontation initially is. [00:12:50] Speaker 3: I mean, in a very minor capacity, I mean, because you've got to remember, all of these students that testified under the state said there was no sort of surrounding that was happening. It was described as, you know, it was described as, you know, this kind of one-on-one thing. And, you know, actually in the closing arguments, the prosecutor was saying, you know, they're trying to say the two brothers or all these multiple people were jumping on him. But on the body cam with the video, once he was apprehended, he was saying, I told him not to put his hands on me, not I told they not to put their hands on me. So that was a big, that was a big deal in the closing arguments. But there was one student that got up there who was actually on the field warming up. And so you saw an angle of, you know, a couple of kids on the field and you saw the angle of where the tent was and what they were trying to do there is kind of talk about how this student's timeline of when he walked over and saw the commotion just didn't add up and trying to like, you know, kind of discredit his credibility a little bit. But no students were sitting there saying, yeah, that was me. You see me walking there and then you see this push and you see this person to the left and they're moving up the bleachers. There was none of that real specificity other than that one student on the field just to show that his times weren't lining up when he said he walked over there because they showed that he didn't walk at all when the moment of the stabbing happened. [00:14:06] Vinnie Palatan: So none of the witnesses who testified, right? Some of the people that were there didn't testify, but the ones who were called and testified that were under the tent, near the tent, all this, none of them could specifically identify themselves in that video? [00:14:23] Speaker 3: No, no. There was one that because he was kind of off to the side. We're talking under the tent right now where the commotion comes up. And then there was one kid that said, you see me coming over here, but he was very isolated. You know what I mean? It was that he had nothing really to do with the situation happening under the tent, which is, you know, why we were here in the first place. But other than that, none of them were saying, that's me. You see me over here. You see, this is Carmelo right there. They're the Metcalf brothers. The only thing that was really identifiable was when the forensic media analyst showed Carmelo walking to the tent and then showed the Austin Metcalf and the other boys walking to the tent. Once things got to the tent, it was just, yeah, that's a crowd of people. You can't really tell what they're doing. You can't really tell that there's violence or if it's horse playing or if it's just people standing in a crowd. You can't really tell anything until they highlighted that little, I'm talking, they zoomed in real hard just to see this little whoop like that. And they were saying that's the push. And then three or four seconds after that is when all the, you know, you see kids running and all every which way. You see Carmelo run three or four bleachers up. And, you know, that's where the knife was found, about three or four bleachers up from where the stabbing happened. Then you see him run down and he's running towards the track and they zoom out and they show him just running near the fence line. But other than that, no one sitting there saying, that's me, I was here. It was just their account of what was going on, but not related to the video. Because we only watched the video at the beginning of the trial before some of these witnesses took the stand. The video was not played with every single witness. You know what I mean? So that wasn't the crux of the direct examination by the state once those student eyewitnesses took the stand. [00:15:57] Vinnie Palatan: Okay. So did the defense use the video that way at all? Did the defense show the video to the jury either during argument or during a direct or cross of their own witness or another witness and say, this is where Carmelo is surrounded? [00:16:12] Speaker 3: They didn't do that at all. And you know, there's been a lot of criticism regarding the defense of Carmelo Anthony here with, you know, six witnesses, a couple of student witnesses. One of those student witnesses that actually admitted that he believed Carmelo was the aggressor, a defense witness saying that. But the defense didn't use the video in any capacity, which, you know, they didn't do that. They didn't explain even why he had a knife in the first place, which I thought that was something they would try to try to harp on a little bit. Just saying, you know, he had it because he liked to go camping. He had it because, you know, you had to cut nylon if you're setting up the tent. They didn't even touch on why the knife was even there in the first place. There seemed like a lot of missed opportunities and holes in the defense's case, especially after they ended somewhat abruptly. But to your point, Vinny, the video was not shown during the defense's case in any capacity. [00:16:56] Vinnie Palatan: And did they have any witness, either through their cross-examination or the direct examination of their own witnesses, who described Carmelo Anthony being surrounded or being confronted by a group? [00:17:11] Speaker 3: Nothing, nothing like, nothing group, nothing like that. There were multiple people. They all kind of described the same situation. They got into there. A lot of people were asking them to move. This is defense's witnesses now. Just want to reiterate. Asking them to leave. They saw commotion. They're looking around. They weren't scared. They just thought it was two boys, you know, kind of going at it, saying whatever else to each other. But it was all described. [00:17:33] Vinnie Palatan: But two boys, not a situation of, you know, I'm not going to say a gang, but a group of individuals, whether it's two, three, four sort of surrounding or physically confronting or intimidating all at the same time, all standing up and kind of getting around him. [00:17:52] Speaker 3: None of that was testified to. None of that was testified to. There was, you know, there was testimony about Carmelo was still sitting and Austin was standing up, but it wasn't Austin and Hunter. It wasn't Austin, Hunter and X, Y, and Z and all this different stuff. It was more so just those two boys, whether he was, Carmelo was standing or sitting, the defense says he was sitting. That's the fact they were going on in the case, trying to say that, you know, Austin was towering over him and Carmelo was trying to be calm and everything. But every account was that it was these two boys, nothing more. [00:18:23] Vinnie Palatan: Okay, so here's another question, and this is a big, bigger picture question, right? And obviously, and obviously at Court TV, we believe cameras should be inside every courtroom in every case across the country. It should not be denied, but it is, everyone has their own rules here in Texas. It's judicial discretion. So it's up to the judge to decide whether it comes in or out. If there was a camera inside that courtroom, do you think it would be clearer to the community, to the public, exactly why he was convicted? [00:19:00] Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. If the public had transparency and heard just the sheer preparedness from the prosecution, every time the defense tried to get the ball rolling, the prosecutor had something ready to go. And in the way he presented his case, Vinny, I mean, I know you're a former prosecutor. You understand how these strategies work. It was very simplistic and digestible for the jury. For example, the defense called this one witness who was a student who knew Carmelo, went to school with Carmelo and talked about, you know, there was an argument about the tent culture, how tents were like locker rooms and you shouldn't be under them and this and that. This student was saying, no, track meets were very social. I'd be under the tent for 15 minutes with some of my friends if I saw them. I've actually been under the memorial tent with Carmelo. So he's going through all of this different stuff. And then the prosecutor gets up on cross-examination and is like, oh, so, you know, they're very social. Yes, sir. If someone asked you for or asked you to leave their tent, would you have stick around or stuck around? No, no, sir. I wouldn't. I probably would not have done that. So, I mean, there's the answer right there, right? You know, just simplistic questioning. Are you surprised that a knife was at a track meet? Yes, sir. Knives don't really come to track meets. No, sir. Were you surprised that, you know, your teammate was, you know, the suspect here? Yes, sir. You know, just all of those sorts of simplistic, no matter how the defense tried to paint something. You know, there were some moments where I was like, okay, the ball's rolling now. And as soon as the prosecutor gets up there, it's like, you know, it's almost like he was trying to play more of the common sense, you know, sort of play here. But I think if cameras were in there, public transparency always, as you said here at Court TV, is always important when it comes to these trials so the community can understand and, you know, not be so polarized. I mean, of course, there's going to be opinions and judgments on both sides, but I think it would have helped them see why this conviction came when he was ultimately sentenced to these 35 years. [00:20:53] Vinnie Palatan: Yeah, and I mean, for the public trust in our system of government, which works for the people, like, you don't necessarily have to agree with the verdict, but maybe at least you would understand and say, oh, yeah. Like, whether you believe the defense attorneys didn't do a good job or witnesses went south or whatever happened, you may understand how the jury came to their conclusion. But where we are now, it's like the reaction to this, it's as polarizing as ever. Cody Thomas, Court TV anchor, working hard. Appreciate your time always, sir. Thank you so much. [00:21:28] Speaker 3: Thanks for having me as always, Benny. Happy to be here. [00:21:31] Vinnie Palatan: So I was a little surprised when I found out that the judge from the Carmelo Anthony case granted a TV interview. He did an interview with WFAA, spoke about a lot of things, but there was one thing that really caught my attention. Again, this is a TV interview. We have the audio. Let's take a listen. [00:21:54] Speaker 4: I have seen from other cases around the country where cameras in the courtroom changed the way that the judge acted, the lawyers acted, some of the witnesses acted, and we were not going to have that here. We were going to really isolate the purpose for which we were here for. Just to have that fair trial, and cameras in the courtroom did not enter into that equation at all. [00:22:18] Vinnie Palatan: Objection. Judge arguing facts not in evidence. You know, if you're a judge, and the camera's in your courtroom, and it changes the way you judge, that's your problem. That's not the problem with transparency. That's a problem with the judge. If a lawyer does anything other than try their case because the camera's in there, that's their problem. That's their mistake. That's their inability to be professional. But I'm surprised. A couple, all right, the judge didn't want cameras in the courtroom. I get it. We're going to talk about that, and I always talk about that. But he gave an interview about a case that just ended. Like, just ended. Is this normal? Is this what always happens? You know, every state in our union has their own little set of local rules and practices and ethics, et cetera. So I didn't practice in Texas, so I've got to bring in one of Texas' best. He is a criminal defense attorney, special prosecutor, and probably the best criminal appellate attorney in the state of Texas. My friend, Brian Weiss, who I've probably known you longer than any other guest in the history of all my years at Court TV, Brian. [00:23:33] Speaker 2: You know, what I found doing what we do is never to argue with the host and kind of suck up, so yeah, Vinny, you couldn't be more correct. Look, you and I have known each other longer than most people who have been married, certainly most of the people that you and I know have been out of here with. A couple of quick takes. Number one, I know Judge Roach. I met Judge Roach when I was a special prosecutor in the Ken Paxton case investigating and prosecuting the attorney general, now Republican nominee for junior senator, because that all happened initially out of the Collin County Courthouse where this trial was. And I heard nothing but good things about Judge Roach. I maybe even met him at a seminar. But number one, when I talk to judges and lawyers and prosecutors at seminars about dealing with the media, it's one thing for a prosecutor or a defense attorney to go on the air. I don't think there should ever be a case where a judge, the guy that calls balls and strikes and wears the dress and everything, should go on the air, unless it's in some educational capacity. And I know what this judge's clip was, was not particularly incendiary. That's the other take. I could not disagree with him more. And again, I think, Vinny, you and I, you know, are cut from the same cloth because we're old court TV alums back in 93 and 94. And you make a great point, not just to suck up. If you as a judge, if you as a jurist are in any way, shape, or form impacted or affected by the fact that there's a camera, which is so unobtrusive that I found people forget about it in the first 90 seconds, then you should not be behind home plate in game seven of the World Series. You ought to be working at Chick-fil-A. The other thing is that if you are going to let witnesses or advocates play to the camera, and again, you know, the three most cliched things in America, French cuisine, Notre Dame football, and lawyers playing to the camera, nonsensical at best. [00:25:39] Vinnie Palatan: It is. You're not playing to the camera. You're playing to the jury. Like, the lawyers are playing to the jury. The jury makes the decision. The jury decides whether they win or lose. That's who they play to. I mean, I've covered, like, this isn't the first high-profile case that we've covered through the years. You know, there was another one that had sort of the racial tension that this one had involving a victim named George Floyd. And the judge in that case, Judge Cahill, had, the state of Minnesota had never had a camera in a courtroom, but Judge Cahill was smart enough knowing that that case for that community and for the nation was important for the nation to see the evidence and hear it so they could understand the verdict and understand the way the evidence went in. And whatever you believed about the evidence in the case, the bottom line was prosecutors won that case. Their expert was amazing. The defense expert was meh. And that made a huge difference in the case. And that's what the transparency showed. And if you don't agree with it, you have a basis to not agree with it because you get to see and hear everything. Will this be a problem, the fact that the judge spoke about a trial right after? My father was a federal judge. And, you know, the rules were you don't talk about any case. You don't talk about any case that still is open to motions and appeals, et cetera. Judge Belvin Perry in that case down in Florida involving Kaylee Marie Anthony, the victim, he spoke after he retired. And that was a case where it was a not guilty verdict. So there were no appeals, right? So what are your thoughts there? Is that going to be any sort of a lingering issue potentially or nothing? It's just more of, you know, he decided to do it. Maybe it wasn't in the best taste, but he did it anyway. [00:27:30] Speaker 2: I agree. I'm at the hashtag, you know, rookie mistake. In the panoply of potential legal issues that this case involves, and there are a couple of good ones. Yeah, we're going to talk about those in a minute. Exactly. [00:27:42] Vinnie Palatan: How about this one, though? [00:27:43] Speaker 2: Not at all. It was an innocuous, what, 45-second bite that had nothing to do with the merits, that did not call into question the judges and partiality. Because in addition to talking to lawyers and judges and prosecutors all throughout the country on dealing with the media, one of the other things that I've kind of become like, you know, the expert on, and, you know, remember what Mark Twain said about experts, you know, experts, just some guy from out of town, is trial court recusal. You know, what will get you bounced, you know, quicker than anything I can think of? And going on the air and talking about a pending case or an issue even likely to come before you, one of the cases that I talk about was, unfortunately, an incredibly tragic case, the Oklahoma City bombing case. And the first federal judge assigned to that case decided that he was going to go on Nightline, a program back in the day that was a pretty big deal with Ted Koppel. And I think most members of this gen are like Nightline. Is that like a nightlight? And the judge ended up getting recused. Why? Because he evinced a take, if you will, that while not directly impacting a bias or prejudice, certainly in the minds of a member of the public, and this is what the test is, whether a reasonable member of the public on, you know, 6th Avenue between 52nd and 53rd, knowing all the facts and circumstances would have a reasonable doubt about that judge's ability to be fair. Now, Judge Roach's clip, no big deal, would not, as his consigliere, have advised him to do that, but so what? [00:29:19] Vinnie Palatan: So let's get back then to the focus of, you know, the part that we played, which is that the issue of cameras and transparency and the impact it has, because what we've seen in the aftermath of this case is everybody is talking about the evidence like it showed something, and there's opposite interpretations of evidence, and it's nothing that the public has seen for themselves. We're only hearing about it through people who have their own bias or spin on it, you know, one side or the other. It doesn't matter. Like, and the public didn't get to see it in a case that is charged the way this one is charging the community and dividing the community and people seeing it so differently. No one actually got to see it except for the few people who stood in line and got into the courtroom. And to me, that is the travesty here, is that it's a public courtroom. It doesn't belong to the judge. It doesn't belong to the lawyers. And there should be an ability for the public to be able to see it. Like, it doesn't interfere with anything other than provide transparency. [00:30:30] Speaker 2: And, you know, I'm going to quote noted legal sage Woody Allen. I think it was in Bananas. This is a farce of a mockery of an outrage of an injustice. Look, there were only a handful of seats, number one. And the people who were in there were, other than members of the media, virtually everybody else kind of had their own agenda because, you know, this case has been on, you know, TV and the Internet more than flow the insurance lady and leave it to beaver reruns. And some of these people, and this is a legal term he has been, are morons. I mean, just don't understand it. And what Judge Roach could have done is that he could have done what a lot of judges do when they don't want to send out the actual trial over broadcast TV. It's to create what we call, and I know you're familiar with the term, an overflow room where members of the media or members of the public can watch the trial in real time. And it's a closed-circuit TV feed that's not distributed yet. [00:31:29] Vinnie Palatan: Yeah, but for Court TV, that's like, yeah, we went to the prom, but my date was my cousin. Exactly. It's not perfect, but at least more eyeballs get onto the evidence, and maybe you'll have some more perspectives of it. But to me, the ultimate thing is it's the people's courtroom. It doesn't belong to anyone else, and I know you're trying to balance all this. Just give me a short answer on this one. Did you agree with the gag order? Because one of the other things that has happened now is that Austin's father finally got to speak, and it was raw. It was emotional. It was wow, but he was not permitted to speak beforehand. I'm offended by that because I believe in the First Amendment. I believe it's first for a reason. What are your thoughts about gagging people who are not the lawyers in a case? [00:32:17] Speaker 2: Wrong from here to there. Stevie Wonder can see that. The leading case in Texas on gag orders and criminal cases, if I can say so, is my case. It's a case called N. Ray Benton involving a killing that happened about five minutes from my house involving a 16-year-old high school student who looked like a young Angelina Jolie. We got it set aside. It is the law. I actually represented Dallas County Criminal District Attorney John Crusoe, a good friend, about 30 miles down the highway from where the Anthony case was tried, when a judge tried to hold him in contempt for violating a gag order that had more holes in the freaking Iraqi Navy. No, gag orders. I've never seen a gag order that could ultimately withstand review. And the ultimate sanction, the ultimate backstop for people who run their mouths is the inherent power of the court to punish for contempt. I don't believe in gag orders any more than I believe in the tooth fairy. [00:33:12] Vinnie Palatan: So a notice of appeal has been filed by Carmelo Anthony, and that is the precursor to filing the actual appeal. So as you expect, you're convicted of murder. You're sentenced to 35 years. You probably want to see if you can get a new trial, a second look, a second chance at all this. So Brian Weiss, you're an appellate expert as well. And that's, you know, anytime I have a question about Texas law, you're on speed dial. I don't know if I still have speed dial, but if I still had speed dial, you'd be on it. Let me start with the first issue that I was shocked by. And again, I didn't get to actually see the testimony because the judge did not allow us to see it. But the reporting was, is that each witness, eyewitness, kind of finished their testimony by saying this was not self-defense. Is that okay? Because I thought that's what the trial was about. And I thought that was the question that the jury had to answer, whether or not it was self-defense. Can lay witnesses in their testimony tell the jury in their own opinion that it was not self-defense? [00:34:19] Speaker 2: The short answer is they're not supposed to. And this is one of the ironies or oddities, if you will, about the criminal justice system. The only kind of criminal case where a lay person can give the ultimate opinion as to guilt or innocence is, of all things, a DWI case, or DUI, as they say in some states, because everybody knows what intoxication is. Self-defense is a question of law that ultimately the jury decides based on the facts. Now, a witness can testify, you can't, you know, I don't think you should be able to answer a shove with a stab, like Bill Worski so ably argued. Or you could say that I believe that Carmelo Anthony had an opportunity to retreat, that is to leave the tent. But I was shocked that these lay witnesses, if you will, were permitted to testify to the ultimate legal conclusion. That's an issue. But it's interesting because I thought the issue that I thought you were going to lead with is the Batson claim. [00:35:23] Vinnie Palatan: Oh, all right. Well, I know you want to go there. So, but let's just start here. So, is that a big deal, the fact that the witnesses said this was not self-defense? Zero to ten, just give it a number, how big of a deal it is. [00:35:36] Speaker 2: On its own, on the merits, it could be a seven. But if I could just kind of throw something in that I think your viewers would want to know about the appellate process, appellate courts don't sit to review questions of guilt or innocence. They review whether or not the trial was fundamentally fair based on legal rulings that the court made. And there's something called the harmless error rule. And that's because nobody's perfect. We recruit all the participants, the judge, the prosecutor, the defense lawyer, the witnesses, the cops from the human race, which means it's going to be human error. And so there are going to be mistakes. And because the Constitution doesn't entitle you, not even in New Jersey, to a perfect trial, you're entitled to a fair one. So I believe that while that could be classified as a legal mistake, what we call error, E-R-R-O-R, an appellate court could find that based on the allegedly overwhelming evidence that it didn't impact the outcome of the proceeding. But again, that's a potential issue. Make no mistake. [00:36:37] Vinnie Palatan: I thought it was a big issue because it wasn't just one witness. It was like witness after witness after witness. So let's get to what you thought my lead was going to be. And I was debating between the two, the fact that there were no black jurors. And you talked about Batson challenges. Let's talk about that. What's going on there? Is that a real issue in this case at the appellate level? [00:37:00] Speaker 2: That is, as we say in journalism, that's the lead that you don't want to bury. And I know that enough of your viewers have probably binge watched Law & Order or seen you on the air talking about what Batson is. But Batson comes from, I believe, a 1984 Supreme Court case called Batson v. Kentucky that has been modified over the years that essentially says that while a prosecutor can exercise as many challenges for cause as he or she can, that is based on a juror's inability to follow the law, that they can only exercise their peremptory challenges for reasons that are not related to race or for any racial reason or for any racial pretext. So what, in essence, this case presents is I understand it because, again, I followed it, but I followed it on, you know, this device right here, is that there were three black potential jurors, what we call veneer members in Texas, who were struck by the prosecutor peremptorily, meaning for no reason at all, is based on their intent that both sides get in Texas in a felony. Once the defendant, in this case, Mr. Anthony and Mr. Anthony's lawyers, make what we call a prime facie case, judge on the record outside the jury's presence, now that the jury's seated, I want to note for the record there are no African-American jurors, and I want the court to note for the record that the prosecutor exercised X number of challenges on black jurors. At that point, the court will say, fine, the defendant has made a prime facie case. Mr. Worski, I want you to tell the court for the record why you struck those black jurors. And my understanding is that they were struck because I think they were not necessarily teachers, but educators who might have felt sympathy for a 17-year-old kid if they're around 17-year-old kids all the time. Now, once that happens, the prosecution has initially rebutted that claim that you used your challenges improperly. It's then incumbent upon the defense attorney, and this is where it's tricky. You have to show that potential jurors, veneer members, who were similarly situated to these three black educators who were struck or not struck, and they were white. So my understanding is that there were white veneer members who may have been teachers or educators who are not struck. If that's the only reason, I love that issue. [00:39:35] Vinnie Palatan: That's a home run, right? So you have black teachers, white teachers, prosecutors get rid of the black teachers, but don't get rid of the white teachers. And then all of a sudden, their reasoning for getting rid of the potential black jurors kind of falls by the wayside because you didn't, everything else is the same. Except for the fact that they weren't treated any. What color their skin is. [00:39:55] Speaker 2: Right. And the word that we use, you use the legal expression falling apart, which I like. It's called a pretext that basically this is, you know, BS. And I have one bad. [00:40:07] Vinnie Palatan: All right, zero to 10, give me a number because I have one more issue I want to get to. [00:40:10] Speaker 2: Oh, eight or nine. [00:40:13] Vinnie Palatan: Okay. So that's a big one. That's a big one. All right. The final one. Everyone talks about this all the time. I know lawyers, some lawyers like, don't like it. [00:40:20] Speaker 2: Ineffective assistance of counsel. I knew. Look at you. You know, my dad used to say when I would, when I would answer a question, he didn't think I could answer. He'd say, you just look like you don't know anything. Well, Vinnie Kamazlatov, I thought that was beyond your, your, your keen, as we say, that's a great question. And this is why I have done as an appellate lawyer and post-conviction writ lawyer over four and a half decades, a bunch of ineffective assistance, motions for new trial, direct appeals and post-conviction writs, including a death penalty case that I won 20 years ago in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Let me tell you what the problem is, is that lawyers like me who involve themselves in ineffective assistance cases are basically like internal affairs, like the shoe flies, the rat squad. Why? Because what you're doing is you're claiming that defense attorneys are morons, prosecutors are cheaters, and judges are ignoramuses. And as you can tell, I can tell by that Jersey smirk, it's going to make you a widely popular guy. You're going to be as popular as, you know, P. Diddy. And so it's a very touchy subject, particularly one, high profile case. Two, racial element. Three, I don't know about the lead lawyer, this guy named Mike Howard, who we can talk about in a minute. But second chair counsel is a guy who I know, who I've lectured with, who I've put on CLEs, a guy named Toby Shook. And when he was a prosecutor in the Dallas County DA's office, he was a legend. He was a cult figure. And one of the, it's a small world after all, sound bites from this trial is that he and Bill Worski go back forever. And they were special prosecutors in an incredibly high profile case right down Interstate 35 from this courthouse where a judge and his wife were killed in Coffman County. So they've been together. They've been on opposite sides. I think Toby's a great lawyer. I'm not sure how much Toby actually did in this case. Mike Howard, I don't know the guy, so I'm not going to opine. But I know this, that with all of the money that the defendant and mom and dad were able to amass via Kickstarter, GoFundMe, whatever it was, and there was a lot. There are other lawyers, not just in the Metroplex, but within Texas, who I would have hired. Mike High School, probably pound for pound, not just one of the best lawyers in Texas, who also happens to be coincidentally African-American and from Fort Worth, or lawyers from my part of the state, Dan Coggle, Ken Schaefer, Derek Collinsworth, Rusty Hardin. Those are the guys who I think the call probably should have gone out to. But to your point about ineffective assistance, let me tell you what point one under ineffective assistance is. Well, I'm going to ask you. I'm going to be the host. Vinny, thanks for joining us today. What do you think the best claim of ineffective assistance is that Carmelo Anthony's new lawyer will have? [00:43:29] Vinnie Palatan: I did not prepare for the punishment phase. Oh, my God. Presented no case. [00:43:34] Speaker 2: Golf clap. Golf clap. I got it right. I got it right. Hit it out of the park. Hit it in the Crawford boxes. No question. And I think anybody who, again, wasn't in the courtroom but followed the case knew that. My understanding is that they called mom, asked her a couple of questions, and then said, thanks for being on the show. I have been successful. I've been blessed over however many years of winning a number of cases and serious cases, including Galen Walby, the only then death row inmate from Galveston in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is kind of like climbing Everest in your shorts, based on the failure to investigate and prepare for punishment stage. This is why this matters, and this is why I like it with a butt that we'll talk about in a minute. What most lawyers don't understand is that most cases are punishment cases, that the defendant in a felony case is the visiting team down by three scores in the first period. Full stop. And if you have not prepared for the eventuality, for the virtual certainty of a punishment hearing, then, again, you've got no business in a courtroom. That means lining up a smorgasbord, a cavalcade, a panoply of mom, dad, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, coaches, teachers, people who knew this kid best, number one. Number two is I also think this kid's 17. And what we like to tell jurors in a situation where we've got a youngster is that our lives are motion pictures. They're not snapshots. Do not judge this 17-year-old kid whose brain may not be fully formed on the worst day of his life, which means you need an expert. You sit this kid down with a shrink, a psychologist or psychiatrist, to talk about how he's young, what he may have thought was reasonable, and how the best cure for crime is old age. [00:45:29] Vinnie Palatan: The bottom line, though, the bottom line for that is, listen, you're not arguing for innocence at that point. What you're doing is trying to mitigate the damage, mitigate the punishment, and get him sentenced to something less than 35 years and closer to, I don't know, 10 or 15. [00:45:48] Speaker 2: Exactly. And that's a great point. And this is what's key. In Texas, we have a system involving murder versus manslaughter. And so back in the day before the law changed like 25 years ago, a jury could consider manslaughter is a separate crime with a separate punishment range of 2 to 20. The legislature said, now let's just make it a punishment issue. So you get found guilty of murder during the guilt-innocence stage, and then at punishment, you get what's called a special issue. If you find from the evidence that the defendant acted as a result of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause, that is, the kind of response that anger, rage, terror, or resentment would bring in an ordinary person, I can't believe I remember that, then this is manslaughter, and the penalty range is 2 to 20. While you can litigate that, and generally do litigate that during guilt-innocence, you can also litigate it during the punishment stage. I didn't see anything at all, nothing, zero, zip, nada, that was related at all to the special issue. And when you have a cap on 20, it's a lot different than a cap on 99 or life. [00:47:02] Vinnie Palatan: Big, big, big difference. Take a look at this photo. This is Carmelo Anthony's newest mugshot, and looks a little different. Looks a lot different. Shaved his head, obviously. But when you compare the initial mugshot with the subsequent mugshot, you can kind of see the transformation of someone who's newly arrested to someone who's now been convicted of murder and going away to prison for 35 years. But what does 35 years mean in the state of Texas? Brian Weiss, what's the reality of 35 years in prison in Texas for someone who, at the time this occurred, was a teenager, was 17 years old? [00:47:53] Speaker 2: Let me put it to you like this, Finn. I'm not sure that Carmelo's parole officer has been born, but maybe his parents are dating right now. The reality of it is that Carmelo has to do 50% day for day. So do the math. What is that? Like 17 and a half before he even takes a peek at the parole board. And as the judge instructed the jury, eligibility for parole does not guarantee parole. And the problem that you have with high-profile cases, and I've seen it in a number of cases, not the least of which was the Susan Wright case that Court TV covered back in the day, is that the parole board doesn't like high-profile defendants. And so the problem you're going to have is you can continue to get what we call set-offs. And parole in the Texas system, what I would suggest is that, and it's obviously premature, is there are lawyers, a couple of good ones. Most of these guys are scam artists, three Codmonty people, but there are a couple of good ones who I really think this family could think about hiring in the next decade, decade and a half. [00:49:03] Vinnie Palatan: Let's put aside the notoriety of the case. If this was a regular case, you know, when I say regular, I mean a case that doesn't capture the nation's attention, right? And it's a 17-year-old, gets sentenced when he's 19, doesn't really have much credit or whatever. What are the factors that the parole board will consider 17 and a half years down the road? [00:49:26] Speaker 2: Well, I think first and foremost is acceptance of responsibility, which is problematic. For any defendant who comes in and pleads not guilty and says, I was wrongfully convicted, I didn't do it. So I think age, prior criminal history, acceptance of responsibility, remorse, and then how the victim's family feels. And again, I alluded to the Susan Wright case, Susan Wright was a housewife in West Houston in 2002 who stabbed her abusive husband 193 times, still the Olympic AAU and NCAA records, and buried him in the backyard. And part of the problem that Susan had with parole was that, not understandably, you know, the victim's family is like, this woman is the devil, when if there's a headman, she's not in it. But talking about those kinds of considerations at this point is, you know, I know a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That's a very, very, very long way off. This kid's best shot right now, unless he wants to be released when we're planting tomatoes on Mars, is the appellate process to the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas. And as you pointed out, I don't know what they're doing in terms of changing lawyers. But, you know, there are a couple of names that the family calls me and we're like, this is who you need to talk to. I know the kid signed the paupers of, but what I would do is that I would immediately start lining up a panoply, a bevy of punishment witnesses who were either interviewed or called, my expert, and to basically present the punishment case at the motion for new trial that wasn't presented, wait, the punishment here. [00:51:08] Vinnie Palatan: I get it. But let's go back to the parole part of this, right? Sure. And we spent some time in this episode talking about the bad blood between the families. It would seem to be in Carmelo Anthony's family's best interest to mend those fences, right? To mend, to try to create something. If they have a relationship with Jeff Metcalf and with Hunter, Austin's twin brother, if there is some sort of moment of coming together, that could be Carmelo's best opportunity to get paroled sometime down the road if Jeff Metcalf speaks, you know, and says, okay, you know, he's been punished and Hunter and there's some sort of coming together, some level of healing there rather than where there seemed to be going now, which is in the opposite direction of that. [00:52:03] Speaker 2: Okay. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Khloe Kardashian has a better shot of winning the Heisman Trophy than that happened. That's not going to happen. Why is that not going to happen? Because there are so many things about this case, not the least of which is the hot button third rail element of race that I think that it's highly unlikely in the short term. And let me say this while I'm at it. I see that the mom and dad have done a series of interviews with some, you know, market 290 whatever affiliate, you've got to turn down the volume on this right now, because all of this that's been going on outside the Collins County Courthouse where I spent a bunch of time, that's not helpful. I know people are angry. I know people won't event. But courts of appeals and trial judges don't want to think that their decisions are impacted in any way, shape or form by public clamor or outcry. [00:52:59] Vinnie Palatan: So dial it down my time to it's time to do what Mackenzie Schirrilla's parents should have done, which is just zip it. Brian Weiss, always great to catch up with you. I got it. I got to make my way back to Texas. When I do, you're taking me out for barbecue. [00:53:15] Speaker 2: Vinnie, like my people say, you're a match. [00:53:21] Vinnie Palatan: Okay, there's a lot of emotion still in this case, and I get it. But at the end of the day, if Carmelo Anthony and his family want to have an opportunity for a second chance at life after committing murder, Brian's right. They got to turn down the temperature and try to heal, heal the community, heal your family. And maybe you reach out and help Austin Metcalfe's family heal as well. That's all the time for this time. Until next time, I'm Vinnie Politan. Thank you for watching. And please don't forget to hug the kids.