Guy Relford Talks "Self-Defense" Following Karmelo Anthony Sentencing

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Yeah, you heard it at the top of the hour, this Karmelo Anthony kid, this case found guilty.
What, tell me who Karmelo Anthony is. I hear that name, I think, basketball player.

**Ethan Hatcher** (0:16)
Okay, Karmelo Anthony is a young man, high school student, the opposite of Austin Metcalf, who was the victim of this tragic slaying. This dates back to a track meetup of last year, in which Austin Metcalf confronted Karmelo Anthony. He was under a tent at the track meetup, and he was in a place where he wasn't supposed to be. That wasn't for his tent.
He wasn't part of the team. And so Austin Metcalf, you know, confronted him, asked him during the prosecution what was revealed to be more than 15 times. Hey dude, you got to leave. Hey dude, you're not supposed to be here. Hey dude, this isn't your tent. Hey dude, you need to go somewhere else, et cetera, et cetera. And this conflict led to ultimately Austin being brutally stabbed by Karmelo Anthony during the confrontation several times in the chest. And he died on the scene from that attack. And Anthony dropped the knife and tried to blend into the crowd and make good his escape, later being caught by law enforcement authorities where he admitted to the killing and tried to say at the time, though, that it was self-defense.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:29)
Self-defense. Now, if there's anybody that knows about self-defense claims, it's Guy Relford, the Gun Guy 2A attorney, licensed firearms and arms instructor, who was just texting me. Guy is on the phone right now. Guy, what do we know about the verdict here? It's a guilty verdict. And this was something that kind of took over the nation there for a while. What, I mean, just broad strokes, what do you know about this case? And the self-defense claim?

**Guy Relford** (1:57)
Yeah, the verdict is, as I've seen it reported, Nigel is guilty of murder, which based on media reports of what the evidence was, is exactly what I expected. The defense claimed self-defense, and they had some real issues, some real problems with the self-defense argument in this case.
And I don't know if you've reviewed the facts with your listeners, but this is a couple of teenagers that attract me under a tent. One kid is under the other team's tent. Somebody tells him to leave. He says, I won't.
There's a pushing involved. And then Karmelo Anthony pulls a knife and stabs this other kid in the chest. And that kid then died, Austin Metcalf. And the claim of self-defense had so many holes in it. For instance, there's a basic rule, and obviously they applied Texas law here, and I'm in Indiana, a lawyer, but some of these principles really are universal. And first of all, you can't use force that is not proportionate to the threat against you. In other words, if I push you, you can't stab me. Right.
That's disproportionate to the threat. The other thing is you can't provoke an attack upon you and then claim self-defense. And there was a lot of testimony in this case of Karmelo sitting there, intentionally provoking the other people under his tent. At one point, say, touch me, and you'll find out what's going on. But he was there instigating the conflict to begin with, and the provocation issue is a huge one. You can't provoke someone's attack upon you, then kill them, and then claim self-defense. So the proportionality, and we have that rule in Indiana, it applies universally across states. You can't use disproportionate level of force in self-defense. You also can't provoke the unlawful action against you, and then claim self-defense. And those were the hurdles that as I saw the evidence come in, at least based on media reports, I didn't see Karmelo Anthony possibly getting over.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:20)
I'll ask both of you guys this, Ethan Hatcher filling in for Hammer, Guy Relford on the phone. Does this have the potential to turn into some sort of, you know, thing where people are out in the streets, rioting and doing that kind of thing? I mean, why did this become a racial thing instead of just like, yeah, look, this guy was in here where he shouldn't have been, and he ended up stabbing somebody and murdering them?
This has a racial component, of course.

**Guy Relford** (4:52)
It does. And, you know, the victim was white, the Karmelo Anthony is black.
But I think one of the real issues that people are focusing on is that the jury that was selected, this is in Frisco, Texas, which is Collin County, which is the northern suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And so I'm sure it's a relatively mixed community in terms of demographics. But the jury that was selected in this case did not have any black members. It was an all-white jury. And so a lot of folks are really, in my mind, ignoring the evidence and ignoring the incredibly thin, in my mind, weak argument on self-defense in this case. And only focusing on the fact that this was an all-white jury. And really, in my mind, if it was an all-black jury, if it was more mixed demographically, whatever it was, if they followed the evidence and they followed the law, they would have come to this exact same conclusion that you guys know as well as I do, that when emotions run high and racial issues start dominating the discussion, then logic sort of disappears, unfortunately.