Delma Jr Banks

The Texas parole board refused Monday to consider a last-ditch appeal from a death row inmate claiming ineffective counsel, saying his paperwork was filed a week late. Delma Banks Jr. faces execution by injection Wednesday for killing a teenager in 1980. He could become the 300th inmate executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment 20 years ago. Attorneys for Banks filed the petition 15 days before the scheduled punishment.

In a highly unusual intervention, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to Delma Banks Jr. just minutes before he was to be given a lethal injection Wednesday in Texas. The high court issued the stay without explanation about 5:50 p.m. Texas time, just 10 minutes before Banks was to become the 300th inmate executed there since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. "I just thank the Lord," said Banks, 44, according to an official at the Huntsville prison.

Delma Banks Jr., who has spent 22 years on death row, is scheduled to die Wednesday, becoming the 300th person executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment 20 years ago. Like the men executed earlier in the Lone Star State -- all of whom Banks met in prison -- he has mounted last-ditch appeals at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. It is rare for either court to grant an eleventh-hour stay of execution.

The Texas parole board refused Monday to consider a last-ditch appeal from a death row inmate claiming ineffective counsel, saying his paperwork was filed a week late. Delma Banks Jr. faces execution by injection Wednesday for killing a teenager in 1980. He could become the 300th inmate executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment 20 years ago. Attorneys for Banks filed the petition 15 days before the scheduled punishment.

In a highly unusual intervention, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to Delma Banks Jr. just minutes before he was to be given a lethal injection Wednesday in Texas. The high court issued the stay without explanation about 5:50 p.m. Texas time, just 10 minutes before Banks was to become the 300th inmate executed there since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. "I just thank the Lord," said Banks, 44, according to an official at the Huntsville prison.

Delma Banks Jr., who has spent 22 years on death row, is scheduled to die Wednesday, becoming the 300th person executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment 20 years ago. Like the men executed earlier in the Lone Star State -- all of whom Banks met in prison -- he has mounted last-ditch appeals at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. It is rare for either court to grant an eleventh-hour stay of execution.