HUNTSVILLE, Texas, May 11 (UPI) -- A Texas killer was awaiting his execution when the state's highest criminal court agreed to re-examine his case.
"Even though my attorney said he liked our chances, I thought it was my time," Jose Angel Moreno said Thursday after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals delayed his impending execution, prison officials told the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News.
The successful appeal of Moreno's execution was the result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision two weeks earlier that overturned three other Texas death sentences, the Express-News reported.
In that decision, the Supreme Court said jurors received improper instructions because they were not told they could consider mitigating circumstances dealing with the defendants' troubled childhoods.
Moreno had unsuccessfully made the same claim seven years ago in an appeal, and the Texas appeals court agreed to re-open the case.
Moreno, 39, admitted to killing a University of Texas at San Antonio student by shooting him three times in the head.
