Murderer wins last minute reprieve in US

A murderer scheduled to die in what would have been America’s first execution in months won a last-minute reprieve today from the US Supreme Court.

James Harvey Callahan, set to die at 6pm (11pm Irish time) in Alabama, was granted a stay, Holman prison warden Grant Culliver told officers on death row.

The inmate’s attorney had asked the high court to halt the execution after a federal appeals court lifted a stay granted by a Montgomery judge.

It would have been the first US execution since September 25, the day the US Supreme Court agreed to consider whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.