A federal court delayed the scheduled execution of Christa Pike, who would be the first woman executed by the state in more than two centuries.
The delay was announced just hours before Pike, 50, was set to be executed in Nashville, Tennessee.
“The interests of justice and the finality of Pike’s impending execution compel the entry of a short stay of execution in order to properly analyse the parties’ fully briefed arguments,” Judge Jane B Stranch of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit wrote, joined by Judge Karen Moore.
