A Texas judge halted the execution of a condemned double-murderer set to die Thursday, marking the second time in two weeks that a capital sentence was blocked in the U.S.'s busiest death penalty state, according to The Associated Press. Joseph Lave, 42, who was sentenced to death for his role in a November 1992 store robbery that left two workers dead, would have been the 25th inmate to receive lethal injection this year in Texas. He was the second inmate scheduled to die in the last two weeks under Texas' law of parties, which makes a co-defendant equally culpable even if he was not the actual killer. In an order signed late Wednesday, a state district judge agreed with a request by the Dallas County district attorney's office to halt the execution after the prosecutor's office discovered evidence they believed had been withheld from the condemned man's attorneys. One of Lave's lawyers, David Botsford, said he and Lave were «gratified» by the action. A second polygraph test given to a co-defendant of Lave came to light within the last few days and reflects on the man's credibility, said Mike Ware, special assistant in the Dallas County district attorney's conviction integrity unit. Prosecutors believe several attorneys no longer with the district attorney's office misled the court by saying the evidence did not exist, Ware said. He declined to discuss the polygraph results in detail. Lave's execution was the second one canceled in the past two weeks in a state that marked a milestone in August by putting to death its 400th inmate since it resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982.
