النص (en)

Anthony wrote about stabbing someone like you just said, but I want to just actually quote his text messages because these are extremely disturbing. He wrote, and licking the blood off the blade. Also, another text message sent hours before the killing saying that he was low-key on the verge. This would have been critical evidence to be presented toward the jury. I understand that they had a gentleman's agreement. I don't understand why there would be a gentleman's agreement in a case such as this with such damning evidence. Well, I think that's the issue, right? So first of all, was there agreement? What was the agreement? What were the terms of that agreement? Because normally in cases, a lot of this character evidence does not come in depending on what happens in a pretrial posture. So judges will rule on certain things that can or cannot come in. And I think what they decided was they didn't want to make this about other issues other than what happened inside of that tent, which frankly was actually nice of the prosecutors because I think that information is very helpful in terms of his state of mind Now there were other things in terms of Austin Metcalf and some of the things he had done and so maybe they thought in a balancing test it was fair to just leave all of it out However, the problem becomes that agreement has to do with the prosecutor's case-in-chief, is my guess, right? The prosecutor's thinking, we're not going to put this in. But the minute the accused, Carmelo Anthony, takes the witness stand, that should not be a reason, then, to not bring that up because you're opening the door. So therefore, it's fair game. If he testifies on this nice, peaceful guy that's never had a problem, well, then they should have a right to then go into those things that he said on that day. I mean, the defense basically turned the tables, though, and they basically claimed race, violence, racial slurs made by Metcalf. So now the defense says, look, had we not had this deal in place, we would have put our client on the stand. I don't know if that's necessarily the greatest idea though. I mean would you have wanted to see him on the stand if he were his defense Well I think the only option they had I have been talking about this for months since it started I was very surprised given the way the evidence came in I thought the only chance they had Really? Was to paint him as having a good character? Or to have him get on the stand and say how he felt in that moment. How do you justify those text messages? Well, that's the problem, and that's why I think they decided not to put him on, because if I'm the defense attorney, and obviously we didn't know about any of this, right? Had I known about this... The jurors didn't, and they should have. Absolutely. Well, and they still convicted him. Right. So I guess the question becomes, to what end are you hoping that this happens? If he gets a new trial, now the evidence against him is just worse? And are they believing that because possibly prior statements or actions of Austin Metcalfe would come in, would that in some way mitigate what Carmelo Anthony did? It just doesn't make sense. because if you look at Carmelo Anthony, Carmelo Anthony maybe didn't know those things about right out Austin Metcalfe So if he didn know then how would that have affected his decision in that order They believe that if they were to have the chance to put him on the stand that perhaps the sentence would be lessened So maybe he would still get convicted because there is overwhelming evidence but he wouldn't serve the 35 years. Maybe he would get something less. Maybe a manslaughter, maybe something less serious than the murder charge that he was actually charged with. It's possible. But again, the fact that there was an agreement, I think this is a great lesson to any lawyer out there. if you have an agreement with another attorney, it should be on the record. You should let the judge know we've decided not to go into these things because now how does a judge determine what was actually part of that agreement? So we're going to see what happens here. If the judge gives him a new trial and if he says, you know, this sort of is like Bill Cosby. Remember back in the Bill Cosby days where Bill Cosby sat for a deposition only because he wasn't going to be prosecuted, and then they prosecuted him and used his words against him? Maybe they're going to say that this agreement was the same thing and we'll see what happens with Carmelo Anthony. But it's an interesting legal issue. Yeah, very much so. All right, Donna Rotuno, great to see you as always.