The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tonight issued an emergency stay for a man who committed murder when he was 17, in a case that has renewed international condemnation of capital punishment in the US.
Napoleon Beazley, now 25, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection shortly after 6 p.m. (11 p.m. Irish Time) at the state prison in Huntsville, 75 miles north of Houston.
The Texas court, which rarely grants stays, decided to consider his lawyers' arguments against the legality of executing someone who committed a crime when he was a minor.
Critics ranging from Amnesty International to the European Union have asked Texas not to kill Beazley. In a recent report, Amnesty International called the United States a rogue state with regard to capital punishment and said Texas, which leads the nation in executions, was the worst of all.
Beazley was condemned for killing oilman Mr John Luttig, 63, while stealing his Mercedes Benz in the east Texas town of Tyler on April 19th, 1994.