Supreme Court and Civil Rights

Cedric Ricks, 51, was executed by lethal injection of pentobarbital at the Huntsville Unit in Texas and pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m. CDT on March 10, 2026, for the 2013 fatal stabbing of Roxann Sanchez and the near‑fatal stabbing of her 8‑year‑old son, Anthony “Marcus” Figueroa, whom prosecutors say Ricks stabbed 25 times and who survived by pretending to be dead. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Ricks’ final appeal without comment on the day of the execution — leaving lower‑court findings that prosecutors’ strikes of minority jurors were race‑neutral — and authorities say Ricks fled in Sanchez’s car, called relatives to confess, and was arrested in Oklahoma after his cellphone was traced.