HUNTSVILLE, Texas, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court halted the scheduled execution of a mentally ill killer in Texas Wednesday night to determine if it will hear arguments that he should not be executed because of his mental illness.
James Colburn, 42, was to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. CST for the 1994 stabbing and strangulation of Peggy Louise Murphy, but his execution was put on hold for more than two hours as the court considered the last-minute stay request.
Michelle Lyons, a prison spokeswoman, said Colburn was kept in a holding cell near the death chamber and then informed about 8:20 p.m. that he had received a reprieve.
"He said he was relieved and it was a blessing," she said.
Colburn was then transported back to death row at the Polunsky Prison Unit in Livingston about 30 miles east of Huntsville, Lyons said.
In a brief order, the court granted a stay of execution so it could consider the latest appeal from Colburn's lawyers. If the court determines it wants to hear the case, then the stay will remain in effect until a final judgment is rendered in the case.
The latest application by Colburn's lawyers was believed to be based on arguments they have made previously to the Supreme Court that he should not be executed because he has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia for the past 20 years.
Colburn's lawyers and death penalty opponents want the court to evaluate whether mental illness violates the Constitution's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment." In June, the court banned the execution of the mentally retarded but that ruling did not include those who suffer from other forms of mental illness.
The Supreme Court earlier this week had rejected similar arguments, and Colburn's lawyers were not immediately available to explain their new tactics.
Colburn slept through portions of his 1995 trial because of heavy medication and his attorneys have contended that he was so heavily medicated that he didn't understand what was going on, but his original trial lawyer said he was aware of the proceedings.
Mental health advocates believe the high court's ruling in the Atkins case last June should apply to other forms of mental illness because they are also harmful. Prosecutors argue millions suffer from mental illness and they don't murder people.
"Attributing this violence, this horrible cruelty and this long string of crime to paranoid schizophrenia is naive and over simplistic," prosecutor Jay Hileman argued to the jury at Colburn's trial. "He did it because he's mean. That's why he did it."
One of the jurors who sentenced Colburn to die has said in a recent affidavit that she has second thoughts about the death sentence. The former juror said she did not understand why Colburn appeared so emotionless, but later learned he was under heavy medication.
Colburn received the death sentence for the stabbing and strangulation of Murphy, a 55-year-old hitchhiker who had accepted an invitation to Colburn's apartment at Conroe in southeast Texas. He attempted to rape her and then killed her when she resisted. He then told a neighbor to call police.
