A Texas judge who presided over the Karmelo Anthony murder trial has been pulled from the case after his post-verdict public comments raised questions about his impartiality, setting the stage for a new-trial hearing under a different judge.
Judge Sid Harle granted the defense's recusal motion Wednesday, ordering Judge John Roach off all remaining proceedings in the case. Harle found that while Roach had not violated judicial conduct rules and could likely be fair, a reasonable outside observer looking at Roach's public remarks might question whether he had already made up his mind. The hearing began around 9 a.m., and Anthony, now serving a 35-year sentence at the Pack Unit near Navasota, Texas, attended under a bench warrant.
The ruling clears the way for a different judge to hear Anthony's request for a new trial, scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday. It also marks the latest turn in a case that has drawn national attention since a Collin County jury convicted Anthony of murder in June for the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a Frisco, Texas, high school track meet.
The trouble started after Roach sat down with Dallas-Fort Worth television station WFAA for a post-trial interview. In it, he endorsed the jury's verdict. When asked whether the jury got "it right," Roach replied, as the New York Post reported:
"Yes, they did, because they were picked based upon the law, they listened to the facts, it happened in this courtroom, and they got a verdict."
Roach also described Anthony during the interview: "He seems like a nice young man who committed a crime and he understands today more than any day before the consequences of committing a crime like he did."
For a sitting judge about to consider a defense motion for a new trial, those comments were a gift-wrapped argument for the other side. Anthony's attorneys played the WFAA interview in court during Wednesday's hearing, arguing Roach had already signaled how he would rule on their new-trial request.
Harle acknowledged the weight of a recusal decision. He described the bar as high and said he believed Roach could preside fairly. But the legal standard does not ask whether the judge actually is biased, it asks whether a third party looking at the public record could reasonably question the judge's appearance of impartiality. On that question, Harle sided with the defense.
Anthony's legal team, led by attorney Wilson, filed two motions on July 7, one seeking Roach's recusal and one requesting a new trial. The defense team includes Texas NAACP president Gary Bledsoe, appellate attorney Russell Wilson, and civil rights lawyer Brooke Cluse from Ben Crump Law, all working pro bono.
The new-trial motion does not challenge Anthony's guilt or innocence directly. Instead, it alleges a series of constitutional and procedural errors the defense says deprived Anthony of a fair trial.
Among the claims: the trial was not sufficiently open to the public. Roach barred cameras from the courtroom, and the defense says only 27 seats were available for members of the public. Attorney Mehek Cooke, appearing on Fox News's "Fox Report," described Roach's camera ban as "protecting the courtroom from the mob."
The defense also accuses prosecutors of breaking an off-the-record agreement about character evidence and introducing other alleged acts unrelated to the murder charge. And the motion challenges the jury instructions, arguing they limited jurors' ability to fully consider Anthony's self-defense claim, the central theory his attorneys presented at trial.
Another issue flagged in the filing: Roach's dismissal of three Black prospective jurors during jury selection. Roach defended that decision in his post-trial remarks, but the defense argues the dismissals raise further questions about trial fairness. AP News noted that the case drew national attention partly because social media posts framed the killing in racial terms, though both sides told jurors during trial that race played no role.
Anthony, now 19, was convicted of murdering Austin Metcalf at a track meet in Frisco, a suburb north of Dallas. Prosecutors said Metcalf, 17, was fatally stabbed during an altercation at the event. The Collin County jury rejected Anthony's self-defense argument and sentenced him to 35 years in prison.
After sentencing, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice transported Anthony to the Pack Unit near Navasota, roughly 90 miles northwest of Houston. He filed an appeal almost immediately after his conviction.
The case has become a flashpoint beyond the courtroom. Supporters chanted "Free Karmelo!" in the parking lot after Wednesday's recusal ruling, according to AP News. Public figures have weighed in as well, Rep. Jasmine Crockett suggested she would have acted as Anthony did, while others have pushed back sharply against efforts to recast a murder conviction as a civil rights cause.
Fox News Digital reached out to Anthony's defense team for comment on the recusal ruling.
Judge Harle went out of his way to say he believed Roach could be fair. That makes the recusal ruling narrower than the defense probably wanted, and broader than Roach probably expected. The finding is not that Roach was biased. It is that Roach created the appearance of bias by talking publicly about a case that was still before him.
Under Texas procedure, Roach himself referred the recusal request to another judge, as required. He did not fight the process. But the damage was done the moment he told a television audience that the jury "got it right" while his own docket still held a pending motion asking him to decide whether the trial was fair enough to stand.
A new judge will now handle Anthony's remaining trial-court proceedings, including Thursday's new-trial hearing. The identity of that judge has not been announced.
None of this means Anthony will get a new trial. The defense's motion raises serious procedural claims, but the bar for overturning a jury verdict is high. What it does mean is that the judge who presided over the original trial will no longer be the one deciding whether his own rulings were wrong, and that is a direct result of his own decision to go on camera.
Judges are supposed to let their rulings speak for themselves. When they start doing press tours instead, they hand the other side an argument that did not exist the day before.
