Race

Karmelo Anthony is trying to get a new trial. His legal team claims he was going to testify, but ultimately decided against it because he feared prosecutors would introduce potentially damaging evidence from his past. Prosecutors and defense attorneys had agreed before trial not to introduce “character evidence” about either Anthony or Metcalf. Austin Metcalf would have liked to have testified, but since Karmelo killed him, he was unavailable. I don’t understand this part of the article:

During hearings on Anthony’s motion for a new trial, jurors were shown previously unseen evidence, including graffiti containing a racial slur that was allegedly linked to Metcalf.

This is an appeals hearing. There is no jury present, because there is no trial being held. I don’t get this part.

This is an attempt to get a new trial where the defense will argue that Austin was racist and deserved to die.

• The attorney in the case testified that his team documented more than 50 incidents dating to 2010 that allegedly involved violent or racially inappropriate behavior connected to the Metcalf twins.
• He argued that evidence was relevant to Anthony’s self-defense claim and portrayed the brothers as having a history of violence and racism, information that jurors never heard during the original trial.

Those points mean nothing, unless they can show in court that Karmelo was aware of them at the time of the incident. Self defense cases are decided on what the person who used force in self defense knew at the time, not on what they found out hours or weeks later. What these are being used for is to secure a new trial, where the defense will do all in its power to get blacks on the jury, because those blacks have already stated they would never vote to put a “brother” in jail.

The ruling comes out today.