Judge recused in Karmelo Anthony appeal hearing

The judge who presided over the commental Anthony case in Collin County was recused today and a new judge will take over tomorrow for Anthony's appeal hearing. Good evening. I'm steve eager. Hello everybody. I'm heather Hayes. The 19 year old was convicted of murder and in june was sentenced to 35 years in prison for last year's Frisco track meet stabbing of Austin Metcalf. Today's ruling comes as Anthony seeks a new trial. Fox four's Alex Boye was inside the courtroom and has details on what's next in the appeals process. Alex. Hey guys. And this was certainly a win for Carmelo Anthony as his legal team pushes for a new trial. We now know that Judge john Roach who presided over the original murder case is now out and another judge is coming out of retirement in order to handle the next phase of this high profile case. Supporters of convicted murderer Carmelo Anthony celebrated outside the Collin County courthouse Wednesday after a visiting judge ordered that the original trial judge john Roach be recused from this case. I talked to an attorney who sat in on the hearing as a court observer. They made a strong argument. They laid out a lot of different reasons why they believe that this judge needed to be removed and I believe that the presiding judge in this hearing heard all the evidence and found that yes because it seems as if a third party reasonable person standard. That's what he used looking in at the trial would have some questions at this point about whether or not Roach can remain impartial for the next phase of the trial. That included a tv interview Judge Roach did two days after the trial. Audio of the interview was played in court by the defense team which was led by Russell Wilson in it. Roach was asked by the reporter if the jury got it right. Yeah they did. Roach said adding whatever they say they got it right. They believe that his comments post trial uh raised an air of impropriety or not being as impartial as a judge is required to be. The defense also argued that Roach enforced overly strict courtroom rules which limited public access to the trial. Lead prosecutor Bill Worsky also spoke at the hearing. He said that he did not think it was his place to speak up for Judge Roach but added that he believed Judge Roach to be quote fair and did nothing wrong. Anthony who is now 19 years old was convicted of the murder of Austin Metcalf back in june and sentenced to 35 years in prison after a jury rejected his claims of self defense during a confrontation with Metcalf at a school track meet last year. Anthony sat in on the hearing wearing a green prison jumpsuit, his hands initially in cuffs, hair crop short. Pastor freddie Haynes said he's counseling Anthony's parents to remain hopeful and prayerful uh that justice is indeed served. We we are not insensitive to the fact that a life was lost but we also don't believe that two lives should be lost uh through injustice. Here again is Todd Shapiro. All Carmel supporters here are are extremely happy and it was a win for him. There's no doubt they won the day today that still will not impact ultimately whether or not this new judge decides that there's enough evidence for a new trial to be granted. And so that new judge we learned just a short time ago is Kaufman County retired District Court Judge Michael Chitty. He will handle that motion for a new trial which will happen in this same courthouse tomorrow at nine a.m. I will be here for that as well. Back to you right now. So what are we expecting tomorrow? Do we expect a lot of the same evidence to be presented that we heard in the trial? Will there be new evidence allowed in to be uh forwarded in this appeal? What do we expect? Yeah, we certainly expect to hear a lot of new evidence. Keep in mind that the bar is set pretty high for a judge to want to grant a new trial. I've heard that there could be possibly uh 8 to 12 different people that we can hear from being called to the stand to testify tomorrow on behalf of the defense and some of those could possibly include people that were excluded from being allowed inside to watch those initial court proceedings.