Karmelo Anthony Attorneys Say Prosecutor Broke "Gentleman's Agreement"?!

[00:00:00]There's news today in the Carmelo Anthony case. The Collin County DA, his name is Greg Willis, is speaking out for the first time since Carmelo Anthony filed this motion for a new trial. They filed it right away after the conviction. It was at July 7th they filed.

[00:00:14]As a reminder, last month a jury rejected Carmelo's self-defense arguments. They found him guilty of murdering 17-year-old Austin Metcalfe after stabbing Austin in the chest for no apparent reason at a track and field meet in April of last year down in Frisco, Texas. Both both of the boys were 17 at the time of the stabbing.

[00:00:33]That same jury sentenced Carmelo to 35 years in prison.

[00:00:36]Then Carmelo got a brand new legal team right after the conviction. And one of the arguments the brand new legal team is making on appeal is that they want a new trial. And and one of the arguments that they're that they're positing is that the prosecution, they say, breached an undocumented pre-trial agreement between the prosecution and the defense in which both sides allegedly pledged not to introduce quote character evidence, character, reputation, or extraneous conduct evidence concerning either Austin Metcalfe, the victim, his brother Hunter, his twin brother, or the defendant, Carmelo Anthony. We're not going to do character evidence on any of these. And the defense really wants us to know in their filing that they had negative things they could have said about Austin, the dead 17-year-old, and his brother. And they list some of it there. Like, oh, we held off because of this gentleman's agreement.

[00:01:35]And we were told that the prosecution would hold off with respect to Carmelo.

[00:01:39]The filing describes the agreement as quote off the record, which is a weird term because we use that in journalism, but it's atypical in a legal proceeding.

[00:01:47]I mean, like a secret off-the-record agreement between the prosecution and the defense? What, we're not going to introduce in a case involving a 17-year-old potentially going to jail for the rest of his life. This is weird.

[00:01:58]All of it's weird.

[00:01:59]But now Carmelo's lawyers claim that the prosecution violated the agreement in the course of the trial when they informed the court on the final day of testimony that the pact would not apply to Carmelo Anthony if he took the stand in his own defense.

[00:02:15]And uh they also said, "By the way, Carmelo's attorneys, they were the first to breach this this deal um if we had it because they opened the door to character evidence when in in their opening statement they mentioned that Carmelo Anthony played chess. So, if we secretly had an agreement not to offer any character or extraneous evidence about, you know, who these kids are in their free time, why'd you mention that?"

[00:02:40]Now, according to Carmelo Anthony's lawyers, Carmelo then only had 10 minutes to decide whether or not to testify after learning that the prosecution might indeed bring up character or reputation in a cross-examination of him, and he ultimately decided not to take the stand. They're suggesting as a result of knowing the prosecution was going to introduce character evidence. Um that decision was incredibly controversial since his entire defense was self-defense. And you know, you heard here and elsewhere a lot of lawyers say, "You can't really effectively make a self-defense claim without testifying, without having the defendant testify."

[00:03:12]So, now the This is his defense team trying to justify their decision.

[00:03:16]Uh so, Carmelo's trial attorney was a guy named Mike Howard. He's not part of the appeal. We introduced you to this guy. Remember, he had that little video like, "Oh geez, you know, I'm just this sweet guy. I'm like this nice guy who gets along with opposing counsel." In fact, we have that. I'm going to play part of it, not all of it. So, at 20, watch here.

[00:03:34]>> So, what kind of lawyer do you want? Do you want uh an aggressive junkyard dog who's going to fight for you hard, or do you want somebody who has a reputation as, you know, easy to get along with?

[00:03:47]Uh the answer might surprise you. Uh while of course it's important to have somebody who fights for your rights >> And he goes on to say, "I'm the second kind. So, I'm like the nice guy." Um want to keep going. So, that's Mike Howard. Now, he's not part of the appeal, but he was the trial lawyer, and he wrote in an affidavit that his client's decision not to testify was quote a 180° change in the defense strategy, and it was a direct consequence of the breach of this gentleman's agreement. So, now the DA is speaking out and disputing what's in that filing as I just outlined to you. Speaking to CBS um to it CBS Texas is JD Miles who obtained the trial's transcripts. Watch here.

[00:04:30]>> It's clear that uh many of these claims don't match what actually happened in court.

[00:04:35]>> Collin County DA Greg Willis says the trial transcripts obtained by CBS News Texas refute those claims. When the judge and attorneys met behind closed doors during the trial to discuss whether Anthony would take the stand.

[00:04:48]During the discussion about the agreement, Howard says, "I agreed that that deal, for lack of a better term, has held. I believe both parties have abided by it." The agreement became a problem for defense attorneys because it would limit what they could ask Anthony without violating it, and because Judge Roach was not bound by it, telling both sides, "I am not here to enforce agreements between parties in the criminal case. If asked to make a ruling, it will be based on the rules of evidence."

[00:05:16]>> So, by the way, you heard him there saying the agreement became a problem for the defense attorneys because it would limit what they could ask Anthony.

[00:05:22]What they, defense attorneys, could ask Anthony if he were to take the stand.

[00:05:26]So, the defense could not introduce "You're You've never been in trouble before, have you, son?" They couldn't do that. And they, according to that report, they were the ones who were upset about that deal.

[00:05:36]CBS Texas also reports that the transcripts refute Carmelo's claim that he only had 10 minutes to decide whether or not to testify.

[00:05:45]>> Howard's new affidavit says he was 99% sure before the trial that Anthony would testify. He blames part of the reason he didn't on being rushed during the closed door hearing and the judge declining to extend our time beyond 10 minutes. But the trial transcript shows that behind closed doors, the judge gave Anthony a lengthy explanation of his rights and that the defense had more than a half hour beyond that to consider their next move, even allowing Anthony to consult with his parents before telling the judge, "I don't want to testify." "Did you think you had ample time to talk to your lawyers about that and got feedback from them, feedback from your family?

[00:06:21]You have had enough time to make that decision." Anthony replied, "Yes, sir, we did."

[00:06:25]>> What was your reaction to seeing this affidavit?

[00:06:27]>> I was surprised.

[00:06:29]I was disappointed and frankly a little confused. I mean, I was there for every minute of the trial and Bill Wirskye and our prosecution team, they conducted this case so fairly and cleanly and professionally.

[00:06:43]>> We asked Carmelo's new legal team, as well as his trial attorney, for comment on what the DA said there. We have not yet heard back. We'll update if we do.

[00:06:51]The DA expressed confidence that Carmelo's conviction would be upheld.

[00:06:54]CBS Texas reports a hearing on the motion for a new trial could be held as early as next month. Still with me, attorneys Arthur Aidala, Dave Aronberg, and Matt Murphy. This is a juicy one.

[00:07:04]I'm dying to talk to you about this. I mean, Matt, what, 25 years as a prosecutor? Have you ever heard of an agreement like this?

[00:07:11]What? And And the DA seems to be admitting that there was one. He wasn't like, "There was no deal." He was like, he kind of There was implicit that there was a deal, but, you know what, all bets are off when the defendant takes the stand. So, what do you make of it?

[00:07:25]>> Well, when you go into a trial, especially homicide trial like that, Megan, there's all kinds of behind-the-scenes discussions between the the two parties, between the prosecutor and the defense.

[00:07:35]And you get, I don't know, 90% of things sort of worked out between you if you're getting along with the opposing counsel.

[00:07:42]So, having a conversation about what's coming in, what's not coming in isn't unusual. The decision to to take the stand and expose yourself to impeachment is that's like first day of law school kind of stuff. And I I this is a head-scratcher to me. I I don't see this going anywhere. Uh maybe maybe Arthur or Dave disagree, but um >> Dave is shaking his head as you're talking. I don't know why. Tell tell us all, Dave.

[00:08:08]>> I agree with Matt. A handshake deal?

[00:08:10]That That's what this is about? Like a gentleman's agreement?

[00:08:13]Uh and that that doesn't really uh hold water in court. The court's not going to accept that. That's an appellate court's not not going to accept that. And plus, when they say, "Well, that meant we were rushed. We only were given 10 minutes to decide whether we should take the stand, whether Carmelo should take the stand."

[00:08:30]That's not true. The defense actually had more than 30 minutes. They had He had time to consult with his parents. Uh the judge gave the defendant a thorough step-by-step explanation of what not taking the stand or taking the stand would mean about his constitutional rights. So, the defendant owns the final decision on taking the stand. They can't lay this on the prosecutor, especially when there was no agreement in front of the judge. Maybe some handshake behind the scenes, not good enough.

[00:08:57]>> But >> Why? Why, Arthur? I can see I I'll play devil's advocate here. If I'm representing Carmelo Anthony, yes, I go in, I say, "We had an agreement not to introduce character evidence. That's why when I had the decedent's brother on the stand, I didn't ask about their alleging that these one or both of them was guilty of posting racist graffiti at some point.

[00:09:16]So, I lived up to my end of the bargain.

[00:09:18]And now I'm going to put my client on the stand to to make the self-defense case, and the prosecution reveals to me, "Oh, the agreement only applied basically to your witnesses, not to mine." I right vice versa. And I'm definitely going to go after your kid on character evidence. So, get ready. And so, my client's rights were compromised in reliance on the prosecution's agreement, which by the way, as I point out, the the DA doesn't seem to be denying that they had this agreement behind the scenes.

[00:09:46]>> I Meg, as you well know, when it comes to an appeal, all that matters is what's on the record. I mean, we do use the term off the record because it's not on the record. There are eight there's the stenographer in there and it's on the record, it's on paper, and it's there.

[00:10:01]So, if it's some off-the-record thing, an appellate court, you know, I mean, clients come to us after a conviction all the time and say, "Well, this happened and that happened." And I go, "Look, if it's not on the paper, we can't bring it up at an appeal." There are other motions you can bring it up, but the reason why this is so far into me, Meg, is in the state of New York, before the trial starts, we do what's called a Sandoval ruling, which is if the client testifies, this is what the pros These are the bad things the prosecutor can say. And quite frankly, one of the two reasons why the Harvey Weinstein original conviction in New York was reversed, the appellate judge said to the prosecutor, "When I'm arguing the case, no human being in their right mind would testify based on this trial judge's Sandoval ruling, which means if he if the defendant testified, every bad act this guy ever committed in terms of having a fist fight with his brother when they were teenagers was going to be allowed to come in. It was just over the top." And that was all on the record. So, we were able to go into the appellate court and argue it. This behind-the-scenes gentleman's agreement, they just don't exist in New York. So, I don't know what goes on in Texas, but that's not how it works here.

[00:11:16]>> Okay, so no one here feels good about Carmelo Anthony's chances on appeal, at least not as he's arguing his case right now.

[00:11:25]>> Correct.

[00:11:27]>> Thanks for watching this clip. If you're new here, subscribe. We We a whole lot more goodness where that came from.

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