On Execution Day, Texas Inmate Eric Cathey Gets Stay

A Texas appeals court today granted a stay of execution to a death row inmate about four hours before he was to get the lethal injection.

Eric Cathey, 37, will now have a chance to argue in a court hearing that he should not be executed because he is mentally retarded, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided today, recounts the Houston Chronicle. He is the convicted ringleader of a group of men found to have abducted and murdered Christina Castillo in a dispute over drugs.

However, Cathey also claims that he is factually innocent and was at home watching television with his girlfriend during the 1995 kidnapping and murder for which he was sentenced to death. He was convicted based on the testimony of an accomplice who is now serving a 30-year aggravated kidnapping sentence, the newspaper reports.