The Mississippi Supreme Court ordered a new trial for a female death row inmate who was convicted of murdering her husband in 2000.
Michelle Byrom, 57, was granted a reprieve last Thursday on the eve of becoming the first female prisoner to be executed in the state in 70 years.
On Monday the state Supreme Court reversed her capital murder conviction and ordered a new trial, according to Beverly Pettigrew Kraft, spokeswoman for the court.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood had asked the state Supreme Court to set her execution for Thursday night for the fatal shooting of her husband, Edward Byrom Sr., in 1999.
Byrom says she suffered years of physical, sexual and emotional abuse by her husband and was hospitalized with pneumonia the day he died in what prosecutors alleged was a murder-for-hire scheme to collect insurance money.
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