HOUSTON (AP) - A federal judge has blocked this week's scheduled execution of a Montgomery County man condemned for the 2000 abduction, rape and strangling of a 12-year-old girl.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas ruled Monday that attorneys for 44-year-old Jonathan Green weren't properly allowed at a state competency hearing to present testimony from mental health professionals who treated him. The hearing was two years ago.
Atlas also says a judge who found Green competent for execution relied on an order drafted by prosecutors, that Green's lawyers had no opportunity to object and that at least one legal standard in the ruling was incorrectly applied.
Green was set to die Wednesday in Huntsville for the slaying of Christina Neal. Green lived near Neal's family in Dobbin, about 45 miles northwest of Houston.
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