The Breakfast Club - Karmelo Anthony Sentenced to 35 Years. Civil Rights Attorney Lee Merritt Breaks Down What Comes Next

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Karmelo Anthony has been sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for the 2025 stabbing death of Austin Metcalf at a Frisco track meet. Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt,  who lives in Frisco, Texas — joins Mimi Brown to break it all down. What thirty-five years actually means under Texas law and parole rules. The politics of Collin County and why this verdict landed the way it did in this specific community. The decisions made inside the courtroom that the appeals team is going to be looking at — and what the road forward looks like.  From the Black Effect Podcast Network.YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Akela Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority black city, in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslave people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Thursday, June 11th, and on today's episode, a front page, we talked to civil rights attorney Lee Merritt about the sentencing phase of the Carmelo Anthony trial. I'm well. Thank you for having. Absolutely.

So I really want to jump into this Carmelo Anthony case. Carmelo Anthony has now been sentenced to 35 years. From a legal standpoint, what does this sentence tell you? This sentence tells me everything that I need to know about the Texas legal system. I've been prosecuting police officers for wrongful death cases civilly and criminally throughout the state of Texas for the last decade. This is, in fact, not the worst sentence that I've seen, the most significant sentence that I've seen, but this is three times the most significant sentence that I've seen for murder. It tells us where we are, and it's very sad. You know, I know you're familiar with the town, and you're familiar with this case from the beginning.

Give us some background. What should people understand about this community, where all of this happened? This took place in Frisco, Texas, which is just north of Dallas. It's probably one of the most conservative jurisdictions or counties in the state of Texas, one of the rarestates in the country. From the beginning, this is, in fact, just two 17-year-olds. I have teenagers in this community. This is not a school that is often involved in violence or a school district that's often involved in violence. violence. This is, Carmelo was an honor roll student, no prior criminal activity, no violence. And this event really took this community by storm in the sense that no one saw it coming. This is not the kind of conflict that we see in this community all the time, but it immediately became racialized. And their white supremacist groups immediately began calling for the lynching of Carmelo Anthony, the Black Lives Matters. group immediately began saying that he was completely justified. It's spending in their own narrative. And it was really unfortunate to see how much of this played outside of court and how much those sentiments fell into what happened in the courtroom. You know, and speaking of what happened inside

the courtroom, I know you've been following this trial or, you know, enough to know the defense, the prosecution, both sides a little bit. What are your thoughts on the way this this whole case played out? I think that from the beginning, the prosecution was. was overzealous in going for a murder one charge. Murder one means murder with malice, with aforethought. That means that's not heat of the moment. This is not a response. Carmela said it was self-defense.

All the evidence that we saw says that Austin Metcalf, the victim, was the initial aggressor. And so I would have liked to see both a prosecution pursue more realistic charges based on the facts that we saw. And then I would have liked to see the defense take a completely different tact. I think that we went to, when I say we, I think the defense went too public too soon. I think that they did not have their narrative straight. In order to prove self-defense, it's what they should have been establishing, both in the courtroom and outside of the courtroom, that it was reasonable for a very small Carmelo Anthony to be intimidated to fear serious bodily injury from two large individuals.

Instead, what we had was a victim blame game that I often see in reverse. When a white officer kills a black person, I initially see a character assassination of that person. And I saw our community, the black community, try to do the same thing, a character attack on Austin. But Austin was not on trial. Carmelo was. And I don't think it was handled well. Yeah, you know, and before this trial even started, social media had already picked sides. How much of public opinion do you think shape a case like this?

The way our legal system is set up, the public opinion should not come into the courtroom at all. It's just not the way it happens. For example, offer Carmelo a historically high bail amount of over a million dollars. And of course, it picked an all-white jury something that we've been seen in this country since Emmett Till. lynching and the criminal charges against the men who were responsible for his murder. And then we saw a lackluster defense, a defense that only put up one character witness at the sentencing phase, six witnesses altogether, no expert witnesses. And in my opinion, no real effort to win this case. I was literally just getting ready to ask you if you thought

the defense did enough to humanize Carmelo Anthony in front of the jury before the sentencing. And now that we have the sentencing, we know what that is. but a lot of that starts during the trial. And clearly it seems as if the defense did not do enough to humanize this young man. I don't know what their strategy was to humanize them. So that's a responsibility for every defense attorney out there. And if they knew, and it was their decision to make, that they didn't feel like Carmelo Anthony would have made a good witness on the stand,

then it would have been essential for them to call someone else that can humanize him, that can put this situation in context, that will do this in this jurisdiction for this jury to bring it home for them. And like I said, it's not that they failed to do it. I don't think they ever attempted. They never attempted to make him a sympathetic figure that was worthy of self-defense that all citizens have a right to. Do you think the defense team underestimated how big this case would eventually get? So these attorneys I'm actually familiar with. These attorneys were involved in the defense of Roy Oliver for the murder of Jordan Edwards in 2017.

These are prominent criminal defense attorneys in the Dallas County area. They had to understand that there will be a lot of attention and eyeballs on this case. I think that they made the mistake of believing that the court could handle it. And this is how the court handled it. They said no cameras in the room. there will be no cameras in the courtroom. There was very low publicity. A lot of the video evidence that we knew was out there in this case was not made available to the public.

And that should have given the defense some consternation. They should have been intimidated by the idea that the prosecutor in the court was able to essentially try this case in a black box. We need public eyes on this. Otherwise, places like Colin County who are still stuck in the 1950s in Jim Cole's segregation, that that kind of atmosphere will show up in the sentencing. I think that's what we saw here. We know that Carmelo was sentenced to 35 years, 17 and a half years he'll be eligible for probation. And I know that you are not a defense attorney, but just from your perspective, what's next?

Let me be the first to say the phrase, ineffective assistance of counsel. That is the most popular grounds for appealing this kind of conviction. And here, the assistance of counsel was completely ineffective. That's why it only took the jury three hours to deliberate on the conviction. And that's why we only saw one character witness, the defendant's mother, during the sentencing phase. So there's strong appellate ground here. And what strikes me the most because I've been doing so much work in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. That's where this case took place is that the conviction of Roy Oliver for killing 15-year-old Jordan Edwards by appointing a high-power right.

life at his car and blowing his head off was 15 years. That's the most that we've ever seen. A cop be convicted for in the Dallas County area. Aaron Dean murdered Tatiana Jefferson in our home. He got 11 years. Amber Geiger Mote murdered Botham Jha in Dallas County, these same courts in his home while eating a bowl of ice cream. She received 10 years. That means all three of those people, their sentences together don't make the 35 years that Carmelow got. If that's not a direct demonstration that there is something imbalanced here, I don't know what it is. That's a really good point. You know, and I want to, I know that there's, we cannot ignore politics.

And I know that you are, you live in the area. You're familiar with the politics in that area. Do you think that that played into any of what we're seeing? Yeah, unfortunately, I think that the black community was punished for their voice here. I think that Carmelo, I should say, more accurately. was punished for the political underpinnings of this case. The prosecutors wanted to send a message to this individual. They weren't dealing with, in my opinion, they weren't dealing with Carmelo as a person

who had never committed a criminal offense. They didn't go after him as someone who was deserving of the benefit of the doubt. I think because of the political nature of this case, because of when it took place and the racial tension surrounding it, the prosecutors chose a side, chose the side of white supremacy. And lastly, Leah, somebody, you know, from that community, how is this case impacted you personally? I know you have children in the area.

You know, I know you watched it play out from beginning to end. You know, talk to me about your feelings as an individual from that community watching something like this happened, you know, where you live. As a father, I'm always concerned about the violence that any of our youth faced. I sympathize with Austin Medcaf and his family. I sympathize with Carmelo Anthony and his family. What I'm really concerned about is that the myth of progress, that this community has been moving forward for the past decade

or since I've been working here prior to the work that I've been doing here, that this community in terms of racial relations and fairness and justice is getting better. And so a lot of people in our community would have pointed to the conviction of Amber Geiger for the murder of Bothom or Tatiana. or Erudine for the murder of Tatiana or those other murders that I talked about on those convictions to say, hey, we're moving the needle.

But this quickly reminds us, just one murder, which wiped out all of those years, reminds us that we're not moving forward. I think that's very frustrating for the black community here. And more importantly, I think it radicalizes certain aspects

of the white community. The men and women who were there to support Austin Medcaf, were not peaceful Christians. These were people who were saying he should be lynched. He should be hung outside of the courtroom. We shouldn't bother with the judicial process at all. Those are the kind of people who are empowered by this sentence. That's heartbreaking. We'll have to leave it there. We'll continue to watch this case and

how it plays out. I'm Mimi Brown, and this is Front Page. This podcast was brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now, there's a new an exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotbi. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Listen to Joy 101 on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby is presented by CVS. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.

I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move, and he went out the front door, and he jumped in a car and drove off, and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to Season 14 of Family Secrets on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. getting a racist statue removed.

And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. I'm Akela Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority black city in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslave people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation. I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.