Time was running out for the condemned killer, Karla Faye Tucker, yesterday as she waited to hear whether her execution would be delayed.
Tucker (38) was scheduled to die tomorrow by lethal injection but has requested a stay from the US Supreme Court. She would be the first woman put to death in Texas since the Civil War.
Also pending was a decision by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on a Tucker request to commute her sentence to life in prison.
The board chairman, Mr Victor Rodriguez, was to announce the decision today, but Tucker's attorneys have said they do not expect a vote for clemency.
Tucker has been on death row for more than 14 years for the pickaxe murders of two people during a burglary in Houston. She admits to the crime, but has asked for clemency on grounds that she has accepted religion and is no longer a threat to society.
The 18-member board has never recommended the commutation of a death sentence for humanitarian reasons. Its decision will be passed on to the Texas Governor, Mr George W. Bush, son of the former president, who could order a 30-day stay and ask the board, dominated by his appointees, to reconsider the case.
Mr Bush has never pardoned a condemned killer nor delayed an execution. Last year, 37 men were executed in Texas, by far the most in its history and far more than any other state.
A Bush spokeswoman said yesterday he would hold off on a decision in the case until the Supreme Court rules.
Tucker's appeal to the Supreme Court, filed on Thursday, argues that the Texas clemency process is flawed. It was not known when the court would decide on the motion. It refused to hear an earlier appeal from Tucker in December.
Two recent newspaper polls have shown that a majority of Texans either do not want Tucker executed or are undecided.
The Rutherford Institute, a conservative group funding the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton, joined the battle on Saturday by urging Mr Clinton to step in to save Tucker.
News reports yesterday said Pope John Paul had sent a letter to Governor Bush asking him to commute the sentence. The Pontiff asked for "a gesture of clemency which would help create a culture more favourable towards the respect for life", Roman Catholic sources in the United States were quoted as saying.
Opposition to clemency has been led by Mr Richard Thornton, husband of one of the two victims in the 1983 murder. Ms Deborah Thornton was found with a 3-ft pickaxe stuck in her body.
Tucker said she and her accomplice, Daniel Garrett, had been using drugs for several days before the crime. Garrett was also convicted and sentenced to death, but he died of liver disease in prison.
