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A small town political feud that wound up with a Texas city council member behind bars is headed to the Supreme Court this week, where justices will consider whether the councilwoman can sue city leaders for politically motivated retaliation.
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“I would never believe that I would be going to the Supreme Court,” Sylvia Gonzalez told Fox News. “I would never believe that I was in jail, either.”
Castle Hills police arrested Sylvia Gonzalez in July 2019 on a charge of tampering with a public document. Now, the Supreme Court will decide whether the grandmother and former city councilwoman can sue city officials for politically-motivated retaliation.(Courtesy Institute for Justice)
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Gonzalez and her attorneys at the nonprofit Institute for Justice are suing Castle Hills Mayor JR Trevino and other officials, alleging they plotted to remove her from office as retaliation for criticizing the city manager, thereby violating her First Amendment rights.
“In America, we don’t arrest our critics,” IJ attorney Anya Bidwell said.
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Gonzalez’s story began in 2019, when the then-72-year-old retiree won a seat on the Castle Hills City Council. She said constituents had complained extensively thatcity manager Ryan Rapelye was unresponsive, particularly to their concerns over the condition of their streets.
In America, we don’t arrest our critics.
— Anya Bidwell, Institute for Justice attorney
As soon as she was elected, Gonzalez championed a non-binding petition calling for the city manager to be replaced with a previous manager citizens felt had done a better job. Another resident introduced the petition at Gonzalez’s first city council meeting. Discussion of the manager’s job performance “grew contentious,” according to court records, and the meeting was extended through the following day.
At the end of the meeting, Gonzalez said she straightened up the papers strewn across her dais and put them in her binder before going to talk to a constituent.
A police officer interrupted the conversation, telling Gonzalez that Trevino wanted to speak with her, according to court documents. Gonzalez went back to the dais and Trevino asked where the petition was. Gonzalez said she didn’t know. Trevino allegedly asked her to look in her binder, saying he could see a clip inside.
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Security video from May 22, 2019, shows then-Councilwoman Sylvia Gonzalez pulling the petition out of her binder at the request of Mayor JR Trevino and a police officer. The non-binding petition called for the reinstatement of a former city manager, who Gonzalez and supporters said was more reliable and dedicated to completing street repairs than her successors.(Screenshot via City of Castle Hills Texas/YouTube)
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Indeed, the petition was in the binder, so Gonzalez handed it over and thought nothing of it. But two months later, she learned from a neighbor that there was a warrant out for her arrest.
“I didn’t even know what I was accused of,” Gonzalez told Fox News. “I’d never been in jail … and it was very scary to an old lady like me.”
Trevino and police chief John Siemens used the briefly displaced petition to launch a criminal investigation into Gonzalez, her lawsuit claims. Three weeks into the investigation, the police chief assigned a “trusted friend and local attorney” to take over as a “special detective,” according to Gonzalez’s complaint.
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The special detective produced an arrest affidavit alleging Gonzalez had “been openly antagonistic” toward the city manager from her first meeting, “wanting desperately to get him fired.” The affidavit also accused Gonzalez of misleading a woman by “telling her several fabrications” about Rapelye in order to get her signature, according to court documents.
‘THEY WANTED TO PUNISH ME’: FORMER CITY COUNCILWOMAN’S RETALIATION CASE GOES TO SUPREME COURT:
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Detectives found probable cause to believe Gonzalez intentionally stole the petitions, violating a Texas ban on intentionally removing or destroying government records, according to court documents from the defendants.
The statute is usually used in cases involving fake Social Security numbers, forgeries of official checks and counterfeit green cards, Bidwell said. IJ looked at 10 years of Bexar County data and couldn’t find “anything even remotely similar” to Gonzalez’s case, she added.
Rather than seek a summons for the nonviolent misdemeanor, the special detective took the unusual step of asking for an arrest warrant, the lawsuit contends. The special detective also went straight to a district court judge, circumventing the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.
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“They wanted to punish me, and they wanted to make sure I went to jail. And they did a good job,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez turned herself in, was handcuffed, spent the day sitting in jail and had her mugshot splashed across the evening news. Even though the DA’s office dropped the charge, her brief political career was over.
Gonzalez’s lawsuit accuses Mayor JR Trevino and former Castle Hills Police Chief John Siemens of launching a bogus investigation after she says she accidentally placed a petition she spearheaded into her binder. She was arrested for tampering with a public document, but the DA’s office later dismissed the charge.(Courtesy City of Castle Hills)
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Gonzalez sued Trevino, Siemens, special detective Alexander Wright and the city in 2020, alleging they deprived her of her rights under the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
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Attorneys for Trevino and the other defendants did not return a request for comment.
The city officials invoked qualified immunity, a defense commonly used to shield government officials from liability unless it can be proven that they violated a clearly established constitutional right.
They wanted to punish me, and they wanted to make sure I went to jail. And they did a good job.
— Sylvia Gonzalez, Former Castle Hills city councilwoman
A district court judge initially denied the defendants’ immunity, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling. In a 2-1 decision, the court determined Gonzalez failed to prove her arrest was retaliatory because she could not cite cases in which other individuals had not been arrested for actions similar to hers.
The 5th Circuit cited Nieves v. Bartlett, which involved police officers making “split-second decisions,” Bidwell said. IJ hopes the Supreme Court will decide that this special protection from First Amendment lawsuits should not be extended to other government officials.
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“When it comes to mayors, when it comes to other desk-bound bureaucrats who want to throw their critics in jail, First Amendment comes first, and they should be held accountable for violations of people’s constitutional rights,” Bidwell said.
Gonzalez’s lawsuit alleges Trevino and his political allies tried to have her removed from the city council in a variety of ways, including declaring that she had been improperly sworn in by the county sheriff. The 72-year-old retiree eventually resigned from the council. The city manager whose performance she criticized kept his job.(Courtesy Institute for Justice)
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Gonzalez will have her case heard Wednesday.
Bidwell said Gonzalez’s case could have wide-reaching implications, including in the 2023 police raid of a local newspaper office in Marion County, Kansas. The police chief was allegedly “infuriated” the newspaper was investigating his background, according to a federal lawsuit recently filed in the case.
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To hear more from Gonzalez and Bidwell, click here.
Ramiro Vargas contributed to the accompanying video.
East Texas native Kacey Musgraves on Wednesday announced a May 1 release date for her seventh studio album, Middle of Nowhere. And the country-pop singer released the album’s first single, “Dry Spell,” along with an accompanying video.
The saucy track bemoans a 335-day dry spell since her last romantic encounter, with double entendres aplenty. Musgraves and Hannah Lux Davis co-directed the song’s cheeky video, which is set in a grocery store and is ripe with fruit-touching and wistful stares.
Kacey Musgraves’ new album, “Middle of Nowhere,” is due out May 1.
Lost Highway Records
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Musgraves was born in Sulphur Springs and raised in Golden, about 80 miles east of Dallas. She moved to Nashville in 2008.
The eight-time Grammy Award-winner had some help on Middle of Nowhere, which features guest appearances by Willie Nelson, Miranda Lambert, Billy Strings and Gregory Alan Isakov.
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Musgraves, who wrapped up her global “Deeper Well World Tour” in December, has emerged as one of the biggest stars in country music over the last decade-plus. Her debut album, 2013’s Same Trailer Different Park, won the Grammy for best country album, and she has topped the country charts multiple times since while earning critical acclaim.
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HOUSTON – A North Texas man faced execution on Wednesday for fatally stabbing his girlfriend and her 8-year-old son nearly 13 years ago.
Cedric Ricks was sentenced to death for the May 2013 killings of 30-year-old Roxann Sanchez and her son Anthony Figueroa at their apartment in Bedford, a suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Sanchez’s 12-year-old son, Marcus Figueroa, was injured during the attack.
Ricks, 51, was scheduled to receive a lethal injection after 6 p.m. CDT at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) north of Houston.
His attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution, arguing that prosecutors violated Ricks’ constitutional rights by eliminating potential jurors on the basis of race. Previous appeals by Ricks that alleged ineffective counsel and called for the suppression of evidence in the case have been denied.
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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 to exclude them from his jury,” Ricks’ attorneys said in their petition to the Supreme Court.
Ricks’ lawyers said that notes prosecutors kept during the jury selection process and which were not obtained until 2021 show that prosecutors singled out minority jurors.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office said court records show the prosecution’s decisions in jury selection were “race neutral” and lower courts have already concluded that prosecutors’ actions were not discriminatory.
Ricks “viciously stabbed his girlfriend Roxann and her eight-year-old son Anthony to death,” the attorney general’s office said. “The public has a strong interest in enforcement of Ricks’ sentence.”
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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’ 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 to stab Sanchez multiple times, according to court records.
Marcus Figueroa ran to his bedroom closet and tried to call police. After killing Anthony Figuerora, Ricks resumed stabbing Marcus Figueroa, who survived the attack by playing dead. Ricks did not injure his then 9-month-old son, Isaiah, according to court records.
Ricks fled and was later arrested in Oklahoma.
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During his trial, Ricks testified that he had anger issues and had been defending himself against the two boys after they had come to their mother’s defense.
“Explaining my rage, I was upset. Things happen. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I wish I could bring them back, like, right now,” said Ricks, who also apologized for the killings.
A day before the stabbings, Ricks had appeared in court after having been charged with assaulting Sanchez during a previous incident.
If the execution is carried out, Ricks would be the second person put to death this year in Texas and the sixth person in the country. Texas has historically held more executions than any other state.
Charles “Sonny” Burton, a 75-year-old inmate in Alabama, had been scheduled to be executed on 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 1991 robbery even though he didn’t pull the trigger.
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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The deadline for Texas families to apply for Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA), also known as school vouchers, is on March 17.
TEFA is the $1 billion program that provides families with taxpayer money to help pay for private school. A longtime priority of Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Republicans were able to pass it through the Legislature in a special session in 2025 after years of opposition from a coalition of Democrats and some Republicans worried about it negatively impacting public schools.
In the period from when applications opened on Feb. 4 through March 8, more than 160,000 Texas families have applied for the vouchers. Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock expects the program to reach capacity in its first year.
Texas school voucher application data by income
According to data from the Comptroller’s Office, 79% of the applicants for TEFA are already in private school. Lawmakers who advocated for the program said it was designed to give public school and homeschooled students an opportunity to switch to a private education.
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After applications close, the Comptroller’s Office will allocate funding to eligible families through a lottery that prioritizes students with disabilities first. Eleven percent of all applicants, about 18,000, are students with disabilities from families at or below 500% of the Federal Poverty Level.
Next on the priority list is students from low- and middle-income families. Just 35% of applicants are from households that earn 200% or less of the Federal Poverty Level:
200% or less of the Federal Poverty Level ($66,000 or less for a family of 4): 35%
Between 200% and 500% of the Federal Poverty Level ($66,001-$164,999 for a family of 4): 36%
500% or more of the Federal Poverty Level: ($165,000 or more for a family of 4): 29%
The Comptroller’s Office will report the waitlist to the Texas Legislature to determine funding for future years.
Texas school voucher application data by grade
The highest share of applications are for students who will be entering pre-K in the fall. Nearly 21,000 applications, about 12.8%, are in that cohort. The number of applicants per grade level declines as the students get older:
Pre-K: 20,975
Kindergarten: 15,777
First grade: 13,654
Second grade: 13,035
Third grade: 12,922
Fourth grade: 12,449
Fifth grade: 12,273
Sixth grade: 12,262
Seventh grade: 10,953
Eighth grade: 9,600
Ninth grade: 9,464
Tenth grade: 7.921
Eleventh grade: 6,731
Twelfth grade: 5,347
Texas school voucher applications by school district
The Comptroller’s Office also released a list that broke down the number of applications submitted in each school district across the state.
How much money public school districts will miss out on will depend on how many enrolled or prospective students they lose to private school because of TEFA, since state funds follow the student. But since 79% of applicants are already in private school, the extent of the impact on public school funding may be limited.
Here are the North Texas school districts with the most TEFA applications from within their boundaries:
