Washington ( CNN ) -- The Supreme Court for the third time this year has stopped the pending capital punishment of a Texas inmate , giving lawyers for the man more time to file their appeals . The justices on Tuesday issued an order granting a stay of execution for Cleve Foster , about 2 1/2 hours before his scheduled lethal injection . The Gulf War veteran was convicted along with another man of the 2002 murder of Nyanuer `` Mary '' Pal , a Sudanese immigrant he met at a Fort Worth bar . The court indicated it would need more time to rule on the inmate 's claims of prior ineffective assistance of counsel , and related claims of innocence of the murder . This is the third time Foster , 47 , has been granted a high court reprieve . His previous scheduled execution was stopped in January and April , once after he had already been given his last meal . His April procedure was to be the state 's first execution using a new sedative , the first in the lethal drug cocktail . A nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental forced corrections officials to announce they would use pentobarbital , a barbiturate that has alternately been used to put animals to sleep . Foster 's lawyers had challenged that change , saying Texas foisted the new protocols so late , with little time for legal or medical review . The state has since executed several inmates with the new drug mixture , without noted complications . Foster has blamed his co-conspirator for the murder . His lawyers in their Supreme Court appeal presented letters from three fellow inmates who said co-defendant Sheldon Ward told them he acted alone in Pal 's murder . The state countered Ward 's statements to a psychologist implicating Foster as the mastermind behind the killing . They also said DNA from both men were found in the victim . Texas has a planned lethal injection Wednesday . Lawrence Brewer , 44 , was one of two white men convicted in the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr. , an African-American . That widely reported crime led to national movement to step up prosecutions and penalties for hate crimes . Brewer has no pending appeals . It would be the 11th execution this year in Texas , the most active death-penalty state . The current case is Foster v. Texas ( 11-6427 ) .
Court grants Sheldon Ward his first stay of execution . The order came about 2 1/2 hours before the scheduled lethal injection . He was scheduled to die for the Tuesday murder of a African-American woman . Court said it needed more time to rule on his claims of ineffective counsel .