The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed the scheduled execution of a Missouri man who was convicted of killing a woman and her two children in 1998.
The high court late Tuesday sided with Mark Christeson who claimed that his previous attorneys were inadequate.
Among other things, those attorneys missed a 2005 deadline for a federal court appeal of Christeson's conviction and death sentence.
He had been scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Mike O'Connell says the execution will not take place Wednesday and that no new date has been set.
Christeson would have been the ninth person executed by Missouri this year.