A North Texas man faces execution Wednesday for fatally stabbing his girlfriend and her eight-year-old son nearly 13 years ago.
Cedric Ricks was sentenced to death for the May 2013 murders of Roxann Sánchez, 30, and her son Anthony Figueroa, in their apartment in Bedford, a suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Sánchez’s son, Marcus Figueroa, 12, was injured during the attack.
Ricks, 51, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection after 6 p.m. Central Time at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) north of Houston.
About nine hours before the scheduled execution, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief order rejecting Ricks’ final appeal to block the execution process. No reason was given for the rejection.
His lawyers had asked the court to stay his execution, arguing that prosecutors violated Ricks’ constitutional rights by eliminating potential jurors based on race. Ricks’ previous appeals alleging ineffective counsel and seeking suppression of evidence in the case had been dismissed.
In a 1986 ruling known as Batson v Kentucky, the supreme court determined that excluding jurors because of their race violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.
“At trial, Ricks already suspected that the state had singled out minority jurors for exclusion from his jury pool,” Ricks’ attorneys said in their petition to the Supreme Court.
Ricks’ attorneys said notes that prosecutors kept during the jury selection process, and were not obtained until 2021, show that prosecutors selected minority jurors.
The Texas attorney general’s office said court records show the prosecution’s jury selection decisions were “race-neutral” and lower courts have already concluded that prosecutors’ actions were not discriminatory.
Ricks “brutally stabbed to death his girlfriend Roxann and her eight-year-old son Anthony,” the attorney general’s office said. “The public has a strong interest in seeing Ricks’ sentence carried out.”
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday denied Ricks’ request for a 90-day reprieve or to commute his death sentence.
Prosecutors said Ricks and Sanchez were arguing in their apartment when Sanchez’s two sons from a previous marriage, Anthony and Marcus Figueroa, tried to break up the fight.
Ricks grabbed a knife from the kitchen and began stabbing Sanchez multiple times, according to court records.
Marcus Figueroa ran to his bedroom closet and tried to call the police. After killing Anthony Figueroa, Ricks stabbed Marcus Figueroa again, who survived the attack by playing dead. Ricks did not hurt his son Isaiah, who was then 9 months old, according to court records.
Ricks fled and was later arrested in Oklahoma.
During his trial, Ricks testified that he had anger issues and had been defending himself against the two children after they came to their mother’s defense.
“In explaining my anger, I was upset. Things happen. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I wish I could bring them back right now,” said Ricks, who also apologized for the murders.
A day before the stabbings, Ricks had appeared in court after being accused of assaulting Sanchez during a previous incident.
If the execution is carried out, Ricks would be the second person executed this year in Texas and the sixth in the country. Historically, Texas has carried out more executions than any other state.
Charles “Sonny” Burton, a 75-year-old inmate from Alabama, was scheduled to be executed Thursday. But Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday commuted his death sentence, reducing it to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Burton had been sentenced to death for a fatal shooting during a robbery in 1991, even though he did not pull the trigger.
