Legal Experts Say the Absence of Black Jurors Could Be the Key to Appealing Karmelo Anthony’s 35-Year Sentence

Karmelo Anthony is sitting with a 35-year prison sentence handed down by a Texas jury, and legal experts are now pointing to a critical detail from the trial that could become the foundation of a serious appeal: not a single Black juror sat on the panel that decided his fate.

According to reporting, the initial jury pool for Anthony’s trial in Collin County was made up of nearly 600 residents, roughly 10 percent of whom are Black, consistent with the county’s demographic makeup. Despite that representation in the pool, the prosecution used its strikes to remove three qualified Black jurors, and the final seated jury was entirely devoid of Black representation.

Criminal law professor Alexis Hoag-Fordjour of Brooklyn Law School, a nationally recognized expert on race and the criminal legal system, spoke directly to what that means. “I know during the jury selection process, the district attorney struck three qualified Black jurors,” she said, adding that the pattern, at minimum, “looks suspicious.”

The legal standard at play here traces back to the Supreme Court’s 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky, which held that prosecutors cannot use peremptory challenges to exclude jurors solely on the basis of race. If Anthony’s appellate team can demonstrate that the prosecution’s strikes against Black jurors were racially motivated rather than based on neutral, race-independent reasoning, a Batson challenge could provide meaningful grounds to argue for a new trial.

The case itself drew enormous national attention when Anthony, then a teenager, was involved in a fatal stabbing at a high school track meet in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The incident became a flashpoint in broader conversations about race, self-defense, and how the criminal justice system treats young Black defendants versus their white counterparts in similar situations.

A 35-year sentence, with no Black jurors deciding the outcome, in a county where Black residents make up a significant portion of the population, has continued to fuel that conversation well beyond the verdict. Whether the appeal gains traction in the courts will depend heavily on the evidence Anthony’s legal team can assemble regarding the prosecution’s jury selection strategy, but legal scholars appear to agree: the absence of Black jurors is not a minor footnote. It could be the case.