March 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court granted a reprieve to a Missouri death row inmate who was scheduled to die Tuesday, because attorneys said he has a rare illness that would have likely made the execution particularly gruesome.
Russell Bucklew, 49, was sentenced to death in 1996 after he raped and beat his ex-girlfriend with a hammer and killed her new boyfriend. He was scheduled to receive a lethal injection Tuesday, but his attorneys petitioned the court on grounds that his medical condition, cavernous hemangioma, would burst blood-filled tumors on his head and cause him to choke on his own blood during the execution.