A panel of federal judges has stayed a Missouri man's execution a little more than a day before he was set to die.
Allen Nicklasson had been scheduled to be put to death at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for killing businessman Richard Drummond in 1994.
But late Monday a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to stay the execution on Nicklasson's claims of ineffective counsel.
A stay such as this in a death row case is not unusual and does not mean the execution ultimately will be scuttled.
A message left by The Associated Press with Nanci Gonder, a spokeswoman for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, was not immediately returned. However, the state is expected to appeal the decision to the full appeals court.