A Texas court issued a stay of execution for 25-year-old Napoleon Beazley, hours before he was to have been put to death for a murder he committed when 17, court officials told AFP.
A clerk for the Austin-based Court of Criminal Appeals said that Beazley had challenged "the validity of his conviction and resulting sentences".
"Upon due consideration, we grant the applicant's request for a stay of execution. We take no action on the application," the court said in the rare decision.
The court did not specify the duration of the reprieve, merely stating it had been granted "pending further orders by this court".
A spokesman for the Texas attorney general's office said the state would not - and could not - appeal the ruling. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is the highest criminal court in the Texas.
Beazley had been scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. (midnight Irish time) on Wednesday for the April 1994 murder of Mr John Luttig of Tyler, Texas.
The planned execution had sparked protests from human rights groups and an appeal for clemency from the European Parliament.
AFP