![](https://d2ksr9467jthww.cloudfront.net/20240716230724/66970114023d1607a07ba821jpeg.jpg)
Supreme Court grants Texas man a stay of execution just before his scheduled lethal injection
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for a Texas man on Tuesday, 20 minutes before he was scheduled to face a lethal injection. The inmate has long maintained that DNA testing would help prove he wasn’t responsible for the fatal stabbing of an 85-year-old woman during a 1998 home robbery.
The nation’s high court issued the indefinite stay shortly before inmate Ruben Gutierrez was to have been taken to the Huntsville, Texas, death chamber for the planned chemical injection.
The 47-year-old inmate was condemned for the 1998 stabbing of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison at her home in Brownsville. Gutierrez has long has sought DNA testing that he claims would help prove he had no role in her death.
He has long maintained he didn’t kill Harrison, and his attorneys have said there’s no physical or forensic evidence connecting him to the killing. Two others were also charged in the case.