Karmelo Anthony's lawyer asks for new trial over track meet killing as new details emerge

McKINNEY, Texas (AP) — The Texas prosecutor who oversaw Karmelo Anthony's conviction in a deadly stabbing at a high school track meet said Thursday that both sides had agreed to hold back evidence that risked further inflaming a case already boiling with racial tensions and death threats.

That agreement is at the center of whether a judge will order a retrial for Anthony, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison over the killing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf last year during a confrontation in the bleachers of a high school stadium near Dallas.

Anthony, 19, sat at the defense table as one of his attorneys argued that the agreement was among several missteps allowed by the court that marred the June trial.

The hearing was set to continue Friday, and it was not clear when the judge will make a ruling on Anthony's retrial request.

Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white. Anthony once sent a text fantasizing about stabbing someone, and Metcalf had a history of fighting and using racist language, prosecutor Bill Wirskye said. Both were details that did not come up during the trial.

During the trial, lawyers on both sides told jurors the tragedy had nothing to do with race, but social media posts amplified the killing nationwide in racial terms.

"All of us wanted the temperature on this, so to say, to be turned down," said Mike Howard, who was Anthony's lead attorney during the trial.

Defense attorney Russell Wilson told the judge Thursday that a new trial should be allowed because of errors that limited access to the proceedings. He cited the off-the-record agreement between the legal teams.

He said the case's original judge allowed a "shadow docket" that shielded character information about both sides. "Everything was done off the record, at an astonishing clip," said Wilson, who didn't represent Anthony at the criminal trial.

READ MORE: Judge removed from Texas track meet stabbing case as defendant Karmelo Anthony seeks a new trial

But the prosecutor argued that Anthony received a fair trial and said his original attorneys had agreed to everything done during the trial.

Wirskye said he agreed not to use the character evidence because he wanted to focus on the moments leading up to the stabbing.

"Witness after witness came in" and said Anthony did it and it was not self-defense, Wirskye said.

The prosecutor said he agreed not to use evidence that showed Anthony had an obsession with guns and knives and that he was angry on the morning of the stabbing.