The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for a Texas man just 20 minutes before he was scheduled to face a lethal injection on Tuesday evening. The inmate, who has long maintained that DNA testing could help prove his innocence in the fatal stabbing of an 85-year-old woman during a home robbery decades ago, was spared from the planned chemical injection at the Huntsville, Texas, death chamber.
The 47-year-old man, Ruben Gutierrez, was condemned for the 1998 stabbing of Escolastica Harrison in her Brownsville home. Gutierrez has consistently sought DNA testing to demonstrate his lack of involvement in her death, with his attorneys emphasizing the absence of physical or forensic evidence linking him to the crime. Two others were also charged in connection with the case.
