The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of a Texas man on death row who has long argued that DNA testing would help prove he didn't kill an 85-year-old woman during a home robbery decades ago.

Texas death row inmate Ruben Gutierrez was only 20 minutes away from being executed when the U.S. Supreme Court granted his request to stay his lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville.

Ruben Gutierrez was sentenced to death for the 1998 Brownsville murder of an elderly woman. His execution was stayed in July.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for a Texas man shortly before he was to receive a lethal injection in a killing decades ago.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for a Texas man shortly before he was to receive a lethal injection in a killing decades ago.

Another Texas inmate has had his execution delayed over claims the state is violating his religious freedom by not letting his spiritual adviser lay hands on him at the time of his lethal injection.

FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2020, file photo the Supreme Court is seen as sundown in Washington. The Supreme Court is telling a lower court to continue to consider a case brought by a Texas death row inmate protesting a policy that means a chaplain cant accompany him into the death chamber. That change came after the Supreme Court halted the execution of another inmate, Patrick Murphy, who requested a Buddhist adviser be allowed in the chamber. By changing the policy, Texas argued all inmates were being treated the same. Gutierrez is on death row for fatally stabbing an 85-year-old woman.

The justices blocked Ruben Gutierrezs execution about an hour before he could have been executed. The Texas prison system last year banned clergy from the death chamber following a Supreme Court ruling that halted the execution of another inmate, Patrick Murphy, who had requested a Buddhist adviser be allowed in the chamber. In response to the ruling in Murphys case, the Texas prison system changed its policy, only allowing prison security staff into the execution chamber. Gutierrezs attorneys had also sought a coronavirus-related delay but were turned down Friday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Gutierrez would have been the third inmate put to death this year in Texas and the seventh in the U.S.

Greg Abbott or the U.S. Supreme Court stops the execution, it will be the first in Texas carried out since the coronavirus pandemic swept the state. A federal judge halted the execution last week to review arguments on the religious policy and DNA testing, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling Friday, putting the execution back on the calendar. The appeals court agreed Friday, noting that in Texas, a defendant can be sentenced to death for acting as an accomplice in a capital murder. If it proceeds, Gutierrez's execution would be the third this year in Texas, a relatively low number for the state tied to the long gap since the pandemic began.