BREAKING: Karmelo Anthony GUILTY
DEVELOPING STORY: Karmelo Anthony has been found guilty of murdering Austin Metcalf. A Collin County, Texas jury deliberated for less than three hours on Tuesday before reaching its unanimous verdict. The same jury will now decide Anthony’s sentence. Texas law says a murder conviction is punishable by five to 99 years in state prison.
Anthony was accused of fatally stabbing Metcalf, a 17-year-old student-athlete during a track meet in Frisco, Texas. The jury deliberated for just under three hours.
The case has since drawn national attention amid racial tensions. At this hour Anthony’s supporters are causing mayhem outside the Collin County Courthouse. Watch videos from the scene below and click here to get my breaking news alerts delivered to you inbox.
FROM CBS NEWS:
After the defense presented its closing argument, prosecutor Bill Wirskye began speaking to the jury and rebutting the self defense argument.
“This is one of those rare cases where every important fact can be boiled down to one sentence: You do not get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove,” Wirskye said.
“Why didn’t [Anthony] just not walk away?” Wirskye said to the jury. “You see he had a choice to walk away and abandon the encounter.”
“You can meet deadly force with deadly force in Texas, but you can’t meet force, a shove, with deadly force, a stab,” he said. “Size differential, it doesn’t work in this case, you don’t get to kill someone just because they are bigger than you.”
Wirskye further explained why he thinks the self-defense argument does not hold up in this case: “Self-defense has to be a reasonable belief, a reasonable belief means a belief that would held by an ordinary and prudent person in the same situation as the defendant.”
“It has to be immediately necessary. Where was the immediate necessity to plunge a knife into an unarmed, young man?” Wirskye said. “It’s not self-defense folks, it’s murder. Murder, plain and simple.”