AKIPRESS.COM - Arkansas' Supreme Court halted two executions hours before they were due to take place on Monday, while a federal appeals court overruled a lower court decision that had blocked the state's original plan to put eight inmates to death in an 11-day period, Reuters reported.

The decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis was independent of the Arkansas State Supreme Court ruling, meaning the state was barred from executing condemned killers Don Davis and Bruce Ward as scheduled on Monday evening, the Arkansas attorney general's office said.

Ward, 60, and Davis, 55, were being held in cells near the state's death chamber and their execution warrants expired at midnight. The next executions are scheduled for Thursday.

In a 4-3 decision, Arkansas' highest court stayed the executions of Ward and Davis, each of whom has spent more than 20 years on death row. Their lawyers had raised questions about their mental competency.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge later petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the reprieve granted to Davis, sentenced to die for the 1990 slaying of Jane Daniel, 62, during a home burglary.

About 20 minutes before the execution warrant for Davis expired, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Rutledge's request to vacate the stay.

"It is heartbreaking that the family of Jane Daniel has once again seen justice delayed," Rutledge said in a statement.

Rutledge's office declined to challenge the stay ordered for Ward, who was convicted of strangling 18-year-old gas station attendant Rebecca Doss in 1989.

The separate 8th Circuit Court decision vacated a ruling made over the weekend by a U.S. district judge that halted all eight executions.

The legal fight in Arkansas, which last put someone to death 12 years ago, came after the number of U.S. executions fell to a quarter-century low in 2016 and as capital punishment in several states was stymied by problems with lethal-injection drugs and legal questions over their protocols.