Atlanta ( CNN ) -- Twice-convicted killer Warren Lee Hill was granted final-hour stays of execution on Tuesday , his attorney said . The stays came from the 11th U.S . Circuit Court of Appeals and the Georgia Court of Appeals . `` I think we were within about a half hour of the execution , '' said Brian Kammer , an attorney for Hill , whose supporters say is mentally disabled . The Georgia Court of Appeals acted on a appeal of a challenge to the way the prison handles the lethal injection drugs used in executions , while the federal appeals court issued a stay `` ordering a further briefing on the issue of mental retardation , '' Kammer said . Earlier Tuesday , the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution , as did the state Supreme Court , while the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles similarly denied a request for clemency . Listen : Asking for mercy in the end . The execution had been scheduled for 7 p.m . ET at a state prison in Jackson , about 45 miles south of Atlanta . Hill was sentenced to death for the 1990 killing of Joseph Handspike , another inmate in a Georgia state prison . He was convicted of beating Handspike to death with a nail-studded board while serving a life sentence in the 1985 killing of his girlfriend , Myra Wright . His lawyers have argued that Hill 's IQ of 70 means he should be spared under a 2002 decision that barred the execution of the mentally disabled . But a string of state courts has said Hill does n't qualify under Georgia law , which requires inmates to prove mental impairment `` beyond a reasonable doubt . '' `` This is the strictest standard in any jurisdiction in the nation . Even Warren Hill , a man with an IQ of 70 who is diagnosed as mentally retarded by every doctor who has examined him , found it impossible to meet this standard of proof , '' Kammer said . Handspike 's family has called for the execution to be called off . The Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities also weighed in against the execution , stating , `` No other state risks the lives of those with developmental disabilities to this extreme . '' Three doctors who examined Hill for the state `` have now revised their opinions and find that Mr. Hill does meet the criteria for mental retardation , '' his lawyers argued in court papers . But lawyers for the state have said that Hill served in the Navy , held a job and managed his money before Wright 's killing -- signs that he did n't necessarily meet the legal standard for retardation , even though he has a low IQ . Hill had previously been scheduled for execution in July , but the state Supreme Court halted the execution on procedural grounds . Georgia has executed 52 men since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973 , according to the Georgia Department of Corrections . There are currently 94 men and one woman under death sentence in the state . CNN 's Dana Ford , Bill Mears and Dave Alsup contributed to this report .
The 11th U.S . Circuit Court of Appeals and the Georgia Court of Appeals grant the stays . Warren Lee Hill 's attorney says they came within a half hour of the scheduled execution . Hill 's defenders say he 's mentally disabled . Comment: