A US federal judge has granted a stay of execution to a white supremacist serial killer amid legal challenges over the use of a new drug in the execution process.
The ruling came hours before Joseph Franklin was due to be put to death in Missouri.
Franklin, 63, was sentenced to death for killing one man and wounding two others outside a synagogue in 1977.
He was also convicted of a series of other racially motivated murders.
Franklin also confessed to being the sniper who shot porn publisher Larry Flynt in 1978, leaving him partially paralysed.
The BBC's Aidan Lewis in Washington says that in the past two years US and European drug manufacturers have sought to distance themselves from executions - cutting off supplies and leaving US states that use the death penalty scrambling for alternatives.
Missouri announced it would instead use pentobarbital, sourced not from a pharmaceutical company but from a compounding pharmacy that makes small batches of drugs on demand for specific clients.
Bütün xəbərlər Facebook səhifəmizdə
USD
EUR
GBP
RUB