State Supreme Court grants stay of execution

ATLANTA — A 31-year-old man condemned for a 1998 triple homicide in Jones County was granted a reprieve on Tuesday.

Brandon Joseph Rhode was scheduled to die Tuesday by lethal injection, but the Supreme Court of Georgia granted a stay following an apparent suicide attempt.

The court granted the stay until 2 p.m. Thursday “pending (Rhode’s) access to counsel.” He will have a chance to “challenge his mental competency to be executed,” the state’s high court said in a statement.

Rhode faces death for the 1998 slaying of an 11-year-old boy, his 15-year-old sister and the children’s father. He was sentenced in 2000.

Currently, there are 103 inmates on death row in Georgia, according to state numbers.