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Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning. This is Daily Crime and Justice.
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I'm Garrett Fisher. Today is Wednesday, June tenth, twenty twenty six.
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Yesterday afternoon, in a courthouse in McKinney, Texas, a jury
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of twelve took less than three hours to decide that
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what happened under a team tent at a high school
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track meet was not self defense. It was murder. Nineteen
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year old Carmelo Anthony was found guilty of murdering seventeen
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year old Austin Metcalf, who was stabbed once in the
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chest on a rainy afternoon in April of last year
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and died in his twin brother's arms. Anthony was seventeen
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himself at the time. He never denied that he did
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the stabbing. The whole case was about one question, was
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he defending himself or was he the one who started it?
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And twelve people answered that question fast. Today we're doing
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the whole story to finish the day it happened, the evidence,
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the jury sat through, the verdict, and the strange high
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stakes fight that's still going on as I record this,
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a fight over a single legal phrase that could be
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the difference between this young man walking out in a
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couple of years or never walking out at all. And
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we're going to talk honestly about the part of this
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case that had nothing to do with the courtroom and
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everything to do with the country. Look, I'm gonna be
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honest with you. This one has been loud for over
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a year. So let's turn the volume down and just
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go through what actually happened. Start with yesterday, because that's
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the news. The jury got the case late Tuesday morning
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after closing arguments, and they were back in under three hours.
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When the word guilty was read, the courtroom nearly came apart.
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The judge, John Roach had already warned everybody to keep
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their emotions in check, and he meant it. Anthony, who
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reporters in the room said was visibly shaking, dropped his
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head into his hands. His mother started to cry, and
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on the other side of that room sat Hunter Metcalf,
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Austin's twin brother, making his first appearance in the courtroom.
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Leaning forward as the verdict landed, here's what the verdict
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means mechanically, because it matters for everything that comes next.
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Anthony was charged with murder. The judge had also given
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the jury the option of the lesser charge, manslaughter, which
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is when you cause a death recklessly rather than intentionally.
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The jury looked at both and chose murder. They decided
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this wasn't a reckless accident. In Texas, that carries a
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sentence of anywhere from five years all the way up
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to ninety nine years or life. But and this is
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the part everyone's watching right now. The moment the verdict
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came in, the trial rolled straight into a second phase.
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In Texas, the same jury that convicts you can also
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be the jury that sentences you. And the judge told
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those jurors they have to answer one more question before
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they pick a number. They have to decide whether Carmelo
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Anthony acted under what the law calls sudden passion. I'll
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explain that fully in a few minutes, because it's the
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whole ballgame. Now for the moment, just hold onto this.
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If the jury says yes, sudden passion applies, the charge
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drops to a second degree felony, and the most he
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can get his twenty years with a floor of two.
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If they say no, it stays murder, and the ceiling
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is life. Two years on one end, life on the other.
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As I'm recording this, those twelve people are still in
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the room deciding which it is. Let's go back to
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how we got here. April second, twenty twenty five, a
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district wide track meet at a Frisco stadium just north
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of Dallas. It was raining. Kids from a bunch of
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different schools were there, and at these meets, each school
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sets up its own tent, a little home base where
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that school's athletes hang out between events. Austin Metcalf was
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a junior at Frisco Memorial High School. He was under
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his school's tent. Carmelo. Anthony went to a different school,
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Frisco Centennial, and on that rainy day, the testimony was
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that Centennial was the only school there without a tent
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of its own, so Anthony ended up under Memorial's tent,
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under Austin's tent. The teenagers who were there testified to
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what happened next, and I want to be straight with
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you that they didn't agree on every detail, which is
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normal because they were kids watching something terrible happen in
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a few seconds. But here's the shape of it that
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the jury heard. Anthony was told he didn't belong under
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that tent, and he was asked to leave. More than
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once by several different kids, not just Austin. The prosecution
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says Anthony refused that he got hostile, that he said
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things like move me, make me, and touch me and
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see what happens. They say Austin Metcalf, trying to be
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the one to handle it, stepped up and told him
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to go, and then somebody made physical contact. This is
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where the witnesses split. Some said Austin touched Anthony lightly
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with one hand, some said he pushed him with two.
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One said he pushed with one hand and grabbed his
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hoodie with the other. I'm not going to hand you
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one clean version of that half second because the people
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who were standing right there don't agree on it, and
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that disagreement actually became one of the central fights of
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this trial. What they all agreed on is what Carmelo
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Anthony did. In response. He reached into his backpack, he
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pulled out a folding knife, and he drove it once
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into Austin Metcalf's chest. I want to give you a
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content warning here because the medical testimony is hard. The
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Colin County Chief Medical Examiner, doctor Elizabeth Ventura, told the
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jury that the knife went through the bone in the
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center of Austin's chest and punctured his heart. She described
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the wound as large and gaping, and she told the
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jury plainly that it was not survivable, that the only
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chance would have been to already be on an operating
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table with a surgeon standing there, and even then maybe not.
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When prosecutors put the autopsy photographs on the screen, jurors
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gasped and the part I can't shake. Austin Metcalf died
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right there on the ground at a track meet, in
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the arms of his twin brother Hunter. Body camera footage
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played for the jury caught Hunter in those minutes, pleading
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for someone to help, saying he's my best friend, He's
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my brother, coming apart at one point, just praying out loud,
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seventeen years old, watching his twin die on the infield.
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Nobody should have to carry that. Hunter Metcalf will carry
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it for the rest of his life. As for Anthony,
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he ran. Witnesses said he took off and tried to
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blend into the crowd of kids leaving the stadium, But
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when an officer caught up to him before he'd even
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been asked a single question, Anthony said it himself. I'm
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not alleged I did it. He put his hands on me.
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I told him not to. That was his account from
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the very first minute, and it never changed. I did it,
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and I did it because he touched me first. That
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became the defense. His attorney, Mike Howard, told the jury
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that Austin had no legal right to put his hands
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on Anthony, that Texas law does not require you to
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wait until you've already been hit before you protect yourself,
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and that what you're looking at is a kid who
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reacted in a split second of fear and chaos when
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somebody bigger than him made the first move. The defense
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rested without putting Anthony on the stand, which is his
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absolute right, and you can't hold it against him. The
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prosecution's answer, from veteran prosecutor Bill Wirski was blunt. You
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don't get to meet a shove with a stab, and
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you really don't get to do it when you're the
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one who provoked the shove. He took a knife to
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attract me. Whirsky told them that's not a mistake, that's
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a choice. The jury agreed. So now we're back to
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that one phrase, sudden passion. Here's what it actually means
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in plain language. Texas lets a jury decide that a
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killing happened in the grip of an immediate overwhelming emotion rage, terror, panic,
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brought on by the victim with no time for the
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defendant to cool off. It's not an excuse that gets
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you off. He's already convicted of murder. It only changes
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the sentence. If the jury finds sudden passion. The whole
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thing drops from a first degree felony to a second
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degree felony, and the range collapses from five to life
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down to two to twenty. And here's the wrinkle that
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makes this case so strange. Two to twenty is the
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exact same range as the manslaughter charge. These same jurors
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already rejected when they chose to convict him of murder.
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So the defense is, in a sense asking them to
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walk part of the way back to say, yes, it
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was murder, but it was murder in a moment of
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provoked passion, so sentence him like it was the lesser thing.
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The state is fighting it hard, and their argument is clean.
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Sudden passion only counts if the provocation came from the
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person who got killed, and the prosecution's entire case was
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that the provoker here wasn't Austin Metcalf, it was Carmelo Anthony.
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You can't pick the fight, they argued, and then claim
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the fight overwhelmed you. The burden is on the defense
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to prove it, and Worsky told the jurors in a
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line that's going to stick with me, mercy to the
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guilty is cruelty to the innocent. He put up a
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photo of the Metcalf twins, one alive and one gone,
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and he read the family's names out loud, the mother,
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the father, the surviving twin, and called each one a
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life sentence of its own. The defense's answer was the
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only card it had left humanity. They called one witness
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in that sentencing phase, Anthony's mother. She stood up and begged.
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She told the jury he's her oldest, her firstborn, that
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he's sorry for what he did, and she asked them
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please to have mercy on her son. And by the
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accounts of people in the room, Anthony wept while she spoke.
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I'm not going to pretend that isn't a real and
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human thing. It is. A mother is watching the system
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decide whether she gets her son back at twenty one
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or at sixty. But here's where I have to do
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the harder part of this job, because there's a version
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of this case that lives entirely online and it's ugly,
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and it's been ugly for over a year. Carmelo Anthony
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is black. Austin Metcalf was white. And the moment this happened,
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the Internet did what the Internet does. It grabbed two
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dead and living teenagers and turned them into avatars for
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a fight about race in America. There were people insisting
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Anthony was a victim of a racist system. There were
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people insisting his supporters were using race to excuse a killing.
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There were dueling fundraisers, viral posts, and yesterday there were
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crowds outside that McKinney courthouse behind barricades, some holding signs
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that read justice for Austin, some shouting in each other's faces,
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with deputies physically putting space between them. And here's the
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thing that I think matters, and I want to say
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it carefully. Inside the courtroom, the lawyers on both sides,
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the prosecution and the defense, both told the jury this
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case was not about race. The defense said it directly.
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As much as people on the outside want to make
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it about that, it's not. There was a fight during
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jury selection over whether the panel was fair, something called
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a bats And challenge, where the defense objected that potential
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jurors were being struck because of their race, and that
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issue may well come up again on appeal. Because yes,
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this is not over. A guilty verdict is not the
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last word. Anthony has the right to appeal, and a
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case this scrutinized will be appealed. So I'm not closing
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the book today. I'm telling you where it stands. What
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I'm not gonna do is pretend the loudest voices on
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the internet were in that room. They weren't twelve people were.
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They heard the witnesses, they saw the video, they sat
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through the autopsy photos, and they reached a unanimous verdict.
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You can believe the system got it right, or you
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can believe it got it wrong. That's the appeal's job
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to test. But the people who actually did the work
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of judging this case looked at the evidence and called
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it murder. There's a playbook for turning a dead teenager
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into a hashtag. I'd rather just say his name. We
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have a laid update. This next part was recorded after
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the show you just heard. Here's what happened on Tuesday evening.
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The same jury that convicted Carmelo Anthony came back with
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a number thirty five years in prison. There was an
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audible gasp in the courtroom when the judge read it.
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And he'll be eligible for parole only after he serves
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half of that, somewhere around seventeen years. And that number
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settles the fight. We spent this whole episode on. Thirty
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five years sits well above the twenty year ceiling that
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sudden passion would have capped him at, which means the
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jury rejected the sudden passion claim outright. They did not
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give the defense the break it was asking for. The
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judge had already warned the gallery that any outburst would
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get them removed, and as the sentence landed, two women
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called out we love you, Carmelo, and were escorted out.
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And then the moment that should always come last. Members
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of Austin Metcalf's family, including his father and his aunt,
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stood and read victim impact statements, the people who actually
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lost him, finally getting to say it out loud. But
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before we go, let's do the thing this show always does.
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Austin Metcalf was seventeen years old. He was a junior
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an athlete, somebody's son and a twin, and he bled
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out on a track infield in the arms of the
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brother who shared his birthday because he stepped up and
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told another kid to leave a tent. Hunt Metcalf has
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to wake up every day now as a twin without
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his twin, Megan and Jeff Metcalf have to live in
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a house with an empty room. Whatever number that jury
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comes back with, it doesn't fill that room. Somebody has
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to say his name, Austin Metcalf. If this episode meant