The Florida Supreme Court has delayed the execution of a death row inmate after his attorneys argued that the state should first determine how to apply a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the state’s death penalty system is unconstitutional.
Michael Lambrix was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Feb. 11.
The court on Tuesday said that it would be delayed until it issued another order.
The court did not provide further details.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month found Florida’s death penalty system flawed because it allows judges, not juries, to decide death sentences.
Scott Browne of the Florida Attorney General’s office said the ruling should not apply to already-decided cases, and wanted the state to execute Lambrix as scheduled.
Lambrix was sentenced for the 1983 slayings of two people he met at a bar.
Prosecutors said he killed them after inviting them home for dinner.
