The U.S. Supreme Court spared a Georgia death-row inmate from lethal injection Tuesday night, granting a temporary stay hours after his execution was scheduled to begin. Keith Leroy Tharpe was set to be put to death by lethal injection at 7 p.m. local time, but the procedure was delayed until the court announced a temporary stay at about 11 p.m. Tharpe’s lawyers had filed a motion seeking to reopen his case due to allegations of racial bias among jurors. The 59-year-old inmate’s legal team has fought for years to reopen the case, claiming one of the jurors openly used racial slurs when interviewed after Tharpe’s trial. Tharpe was sentenced to death for the 1990 killing of his sister-in-law, Jaquelyn Freeman. Supreme Court justices will now consider whether to hear Tharpe’s case.
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