Georgia inmate gets stay hours before scheduled execution

ATLANTA (Reuters) - The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday granted a stay of execution to a two-time murderer hours before he was due to become the state's first inmate to undergo lethal injection using one drug instead of three.

The court said it would decide whether the recent decision by the Department of Corrections, switching the lethal injection process from three drugs to one, violated the state's Administrative Procedures Act.

The act requires a 30-day public comment period before a change in procedure is allowed.

Warren Lee Hill, 52, was sentenced to death for fatally beating another inmate in 1990 while serving a life sentence for killing his girlfriend by shooting her 11 times.

Hill was due to be executed last week but the state delayed it until Monday after announcing the switch from a three-drug cocktail that included pentobarbital to pentobarbital alone. The drug is sometimes used to euthanize animals.  More

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