A Texas visiting judge took Collin County District Judge John Roach Jr. off Karmelo Anthony’s post-trial file on August 19, 2026. Sid Harle granted the defense motion to recuse. Harle said he personally thought Roach could still be fair. He also said outsiders would reasonably worry about impartiality after Roach talked to the press. That second sentence is why Roach is out. Retired Kaufman County Judge Michael Chitty was assigned to the new-trial hearing that was already on the calendar. A recusal is not a new verdict. It is a new referee.

Anthony, 19, was convicted in June 2026 of murder in the April 2025 stabbing death of Austin Metcalf, 17, at a Frisco track meet. The jury gave him 35 years. He is appealing. His new lawyers, including Russell Wilson on the coverage, argued two things: Roach’s interview — agreeing the jury got it right, calling Anthony a nice young man who committed a crime — and courtroom-management choices such as shutting down an overflow room, which they labeled structural error. Harle did not have to find Roach corrupt. He had to find that the appearance of a judge who had already endorsed the verdict was a problem for the next round. He found that. Cheers in the hallway are not part of the legal test. They happened anyway.

What recusal does not do

It does not reopen the meet. It does not return Metcalf. It does not erase 35 years. A motion for a new trial is a separate ask: that something in the first trial was so wrong the conviction should be set aside. Chitty hears that. If he denies it, the file climbs into the ordinary appellate stack with Roach’s name off the later caption. If he grants it, Collin County tries the case again. Neither outcome is implied by Wednesday morning.

Roach had said the overflow limits were to protect the defendant and his lawyers. The defense called that a public-access problem. Both can be argued. Harle did not need to settle the First Amendment seminar to move the judge.

Keep the victim in the frame

Austin Metcalf was 17. A track meet is supposed to be a school day. The political noise that attached itself to this file — race, self-defense claims, national talking heads — is how the case left Frisco. It is not how a recusal works. Recusal works on whether the next hearing looks clean. Metcalf’s family still has a conviction. Anthony still has a sentence. A new judge is the only thing that changed on August 19.

Texas will keep producing visiting judges for ugly files. Harle has done other high-visibility work. Chitty is retired and available. The defense will call Wednesday a major victory because it is the first thing they have won in public since the verdict. The state will call it a scheduling event. Both are doing their jobs. The job that is not available is pretending a recusal is an acquittal. It is a newspaper-interview problem that became a personnel change. The 35 years are still the 35 years until someone with a robe says they are not.