A Texas judge who told a television station that jurors "got it right" in convicting Karmelo Anthony of murder has been removed from the case, a ruling Anthony's legal team calls a major step toward a new trial.

Senior Judge Sid Harle granted the defense's recusal motion on Wednesday, finding that a reasonable outside observer could question whether Judge John Roach appeared impartial after Roach gave a post-verdict interview to Dallas television station WFAA and made other public statements about the case. Retired District Judge Michael Chitty was assigned to preside over Anthony's motion for a new trial, Fox News reported, with a hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Anthony, now 19, was convicted in June of murdering 17-year-old Austin Metcalf and sentenced to 35 years in prison. The stabbing occurred at a track meet at Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, Texas, in April 2025. Prosecutors argued Anthony provoked Metcalf, and witnesses testified Anthony was the aggressor. A jury took less than three hours to convict him and rejected a "sudden passion" defense that could have reduced the charge to a second-degree felony carrying as little as two years.

After the verdict, Roach sat down with WFAA. Asked whether the jury got it right, he answered plainly.

"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 commented on Anthony directly, calling him "a nice young man who committed a crime" who now understood "the consequences of committing a crime like he did." He added: "As long as I follow the law, I sleep well at night." Those remarks came after Anthony had already filed his appeal, a timeline Anthony's legal team argued violated rules requiring judicial impartiality during pending proceedings.

Harle acknowledged a 'very high bar', and ruled Roach failed to clear it

Judge Harle, who presided over the recusal hearing, acknowledged that the standard for removing a sitting trial judge is demanding. But he concluded that impartiality alone was not the legal test, the question was whether a reasonable, fully informed observer could doubt it. Roach's public comments, Harle found, crossed that line. The New York Post reported that Harle called it a "very high bar" but granted the motion nonetheless.

Anthony's lawyers framed the ruling in direct terms. In a statement, they said it answered "a fundamental question: whether a reasonable fully informed observer would see Judge Roach's conduct and believe that he could fairly and impartially consider a motion for new trial." AP News reported that the visiting judge ordered the recusal after reviewing Roach's television comments.

Lee Merritt, Anthony's spokesman, told the Daily Mail that the ruling brought relief to the defense.

"It's a great relief for Karmelo, because, obviously, the judge, who, we believe, put his thumb on the scale of justice, is out of the way, but the most important day for us now is tomorrow."

Merritt added that Anthony "is glad to be here with the support of the community, his family. He was hoping for a positive outcome. He was trying to keep his spirits up." Anthony appeared at the Wednesday hearing in a green jumpsuit. Supporters cheered in the courthouse hallways and outside the Collin County building.

Defense also cited the removal of three Black prospective jurors

Beyond Roach's post-trial interview, Anthony's defense team raised concerns about the composition of the jury itself. The trial jury included no Black jurors after Roach excused three prospective Black jurors during selection, a decision the defense cited as additional grounds for a retrial. The Washington Examiner reported that a newly appointed judge would now hear those retrial arguments.

The case has drawn national attention and significant social media interest. Prosecutor Bill Wirskye accused social media influencers of mounting a "concerted effort" to disrupt the trial proceedings, saying at the hearing: "Some of them are here today." Dallas pastor Frederick Douglass Haynes III said Roach "jumped the gun" by publicly agreeing with the guilty verdict, raising questions about whether Anthony received a fair trial.

Judges hold enormous power over trial outcomes, and recent high-profile legal battles have put judicial conduct and accountability under a harsh spotlight. Whether a judge's public commentary after a verdict should disqualify him from ruling on the appeal is a narrow legal question, but it carries broad implications for defendants' rights to impartial post-trial review.

Austin Metcalf's father says the process reopens old wounds

For Jeff Metcalf, the victim's father, Wednesday's hearing was another painful chapter. He told the Daily Mail that the legal maneuvering forced him to relive his son's death.

"It was almost healed, but rip off the Band Aid and rip off the scab with it. And it opens open a new wound again. So, it starts the healing process again from zero."

Jeff Metcalf said he has no control over the court proceedings and is trying to focus on what he can do. He expressed frustration at the attention directed toward his son's killer.

"[Anthony's] a murderer. My son's dead. Why is he [Anthony] getting all this attention."

Still, Metcalf said he would keep showing up. "I don't control any of this, so I really don't give it a whole lot of weight," he said. "I'll just bring my popcorn and watch the show right now." He pointed to the Austin Metcalf Foundation, which he created in his son's memory, as his purpose going forward.

"Regardless of what gets decided in court, that's the Austin Metcalf Foundation that I have created. That's my purpose for the rest of my life. Save lives, so no other parent has this happen. You go out and educate."

Austin Metcalf was 17 years old when he was stabbed at the track meet. A medical examiner testified that the knife pierced through bone in the center of his chest and punctured the right side of his heart. A police report cited in the case noted that Anthony "reached inside a bag" and told Metcalf: "Touch me and see what happens." Prosecutors said Metcalf leaned in to shove Anthony before the fatal stabbing.

Conflicts between judges and the parties who appear before them are as old as the courts themselves. But when a judge publicly endorses a verdict and then expects to rule fairly on the losing side's appeal, the system's credibility depends on someone stepping in, and in this case, Judge Harle did.

Anthony originally faced up to 99 years; retrial hearing now in new hands

Anthony originally faced between 5 and 99 years in prison for the murder charge. Prosecutors agreed to allow the jury to consider "sudden passion", a Texas legal term that lets a defendant argue he acted in an intense emotional state, as a sentencing factor. If the jury had accepted that argument, the sentence would have dropped to a second-degree felony range with a minimum of roughly two years. The jury rejected it and handed down 35 years.

Court officials began preparing for the trial eight months in advance, Roach told WFAA. Just The News reported that the defense also challenged Roach's dismissal of the three Black prospective jurors as part of its broader argument that Anthony did not receive a fair trial.

With Roach now off the case, Judge Chitty will preside over the retrial hearing. Anthony's legal team, which includes high-profile civil rights attorney Ben Crump, will present its arguments to a judge who carries no public record of having prejudged the outcome.

Judicial accountability matters regardless of the defendant or the crime. Courts across the country have faced scrutiny over whether judges maintain the neutrality the system demands. In this case, the question is straightforward: a judge told a television audience the jury got it right, then expected to preside over the appeal asking whether the jury got it wrong.

Several open questions remain. Anthony's defense has not publicly detailed every ground cited in the retrial request beyond the judge's removal and the jury-selection dispute. The identity of the specific impartiality rules Roach allegedly violated has not been spelled out in public filings covered so far. And whether a new judge and a fresh hearing will ultimately produce a different outcome for a defendant already convicted of murder is far from certain.

What is certain is that a 17-year-old athlete is dead, a jury heard the evidence and convicted his killer in under three hours, and the judge who presided over that trial could not resist telling the cameras he agreed with the verdict. Judges who stay in their lane protect the system. Judges who step outside it hand the defense exactly the opening it needs.

Jeff Metcalf has the right instinct. He cannot control the courts. He can honor his son. The system owes him, and every victim's family, a process clean enough that no convicted killer gets a second chance on a technicality a judge created himself.