Courtroom Surprise: Karmelo Anthony’s trial over the fatal Texas track meet st@bbing featured one detail rarely seen in cases like this

Karmelo Anthony; Austin Metcalf.Credit : Frisco Police Dept; Austin Metcalf/X

The jury has been selected in the trial of Karmelo Anthony, the Texas teen accused of stabbing another student to death during an altercation at a high school track meet last year.

Anthony, 19, is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the April 2025 death of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf in Frisco, Texas. Anthony was also 17 at the time, but the state’s criminal justice system considers 17-year-olds to be adults.

Opening arguments are set to begin Thursday, June 4. The 12 member jury selected for the trial in Collin County does not include any Black jurors, according to reports from FOX 4 News, NBC 5 DFW and CBS News. Anthony is Black, while Metcalf was White.

Prosecutors argued that the facts of the case were “race-neutral” and that the circumstances did not necessitate a racially diverse jury, after attorneys for both sides went through a pool of around 500 potential jurors, per CBS News.

Some prospective jurors were dismissed because they worked in education, while others were removed after indicating that the races of the defendant and the victim could affect their judgment, NBC 5 reported.

Anthony’s defense team cited a Batson challenge, referring to the landmark Supreme Court case Batson v. Kentucky, which prohibits attorneys from excluding potential jurors based solely on race, FOX 4 reported. However, the legal objection is rarely upheld in court, an expert told the news station.

Anthony, his family and his attorneys have all maintained that he was acting in self-defense. But, prosecutors disagree.

“This case has nothing to do with race,” prosecutor Bill Wirskye said during opening arguments, NBC News reported. “This case is not self-defense. Unjustified provoked murder — that’s why we’re here this morning,” he added.

Anthony allegedly stabbed Metcalf after he asked him to move out of a tent he was sitting under at Kuykendall Stadium, an eyewitness told police in the probable cause affidavit previously obtained by PEOPLE.

“Touch me and see what happens,” Anthony allegedly told Metcalf. When Metcalf went to physically move Anthony, Anthony allegedly pulled a knife out of his bag, stabbed Metcalf in the chest and fled from the tent, per the affidavit.

An arresting officer ordered Anthony to put his hands up, at which time Anthony allegedly shouted: “I was protecting myself,” the affidavit states.

When asked why Anthony was allegedly carrying a knife in his backpack at the time of the stabbing, one of his defense attorneys, Mike Howard, said, “That’s an understandable question but it’s not something that we are prepared to go into,” The Dallas Morning News reported in April 2025.

Witnesses told investigators the two boys did not know each other prior to the incident, per the affidavit.

An online fundraiser has raised more than $615,000 for Anthony’s defense as of Thursday.

Meanwhile, Metcalf’s relative remembered him as a “bright young man with a great future ahead of him,” according to a GoFundMe campaign created to help offset costs in the wake of his death. That campaign has since received nearly $580,000 in donations.

Days before the trial, Metcalf’s twin brother, Hunter, accepted his late brother’s posthumous diploma at Memorial High School’s graduation ceremony. He did not speak publicly, nor did any other family members of Austin due to a gag order in the ongoing case, WFAA reported.