A judge has temporarily halted the execution of the Georgia man convicted of killing an 8-year-old girl and raping her 10-year-old friend Monday night.

Virgil Delano Presnell, Jr. was scheduled to be executed Tuesday, May 17 at 7 p.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

Georgia’s parole board on Monday declined to halt the execution, however, lawyers for the Federal Defender Program filed a lawsuit last week and an emergency motion Monday in Fulton County Superior Court. They said the setting of his execution date violates a written agreement with the office of the state attorney general that temporarily put executions on hold during the coronavirus pandemic.