The state of Ohio has been through this before.

A man sits on death row as his fate hangs in the balance, last minute appeals run through the court system and families close to the case wait, not knowing what is going to happen next.

John W. Byrd, Jr., a 37-year-old man convicted in a 1983 stabbing death of a Cincinnati convenience store clerk, was scheduled to be executed last week. His date with death, however, was postponed.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay on the execution just one day before Byrd was to become the first inmate to die in Ohio’s electric chair in 38 years.

A panel of three judges, which had previously denied Byrd’s request, delayed the execution at the urging of one of the judges who asked for more time for the full court to examine the case.

“The complexity of these issues raised by (Byrd) are of such scope and magnitude as to demand a careful and exhaustive analysis,” Judge Nathaniel R. Jones wrote in support of the delay.

Byrd has maintained that he is innocent and that an accomplice, John Brewer, is the man who stabbed Monte Tewksbury, 40, on the night of April 17, 1983, at the King Kwik convenience store in Colerain Township near Cincinnati. Brewer, who is currently serving a life sentence, signed an affidavit in 1989 and again in 2001 corroborating Byrd’s story.

“He is actually innocent, and in order to be executed, you have to be the principal offender,” said Byrd’s attorney, Ohio Public Defender David Bodiker.

The Brewer confession, however, which had not been used by the defense until this year, has not been admitted into evidence by the court.

“He sat on this evidence like a chicken waiting to hatch, for 12 years,” the court wrote. “There is simply no legal excuse for this conduct.”

The court has also previously written that Byrd’s claim of innocence was “nothing short of fraud to this court.”

Byrd, who has chosen to die by the electric chair over lethal injection to illustrate what he says is the brutality of capital punishment, would be the second man on death row this year to have his sentence carried out. Jay D. Scott was put to death earlier this year following two last second delays to look into his mental health.

Byrd has exhausted most of his appeals and if a decision comes down against him, Bodiker said, his last option would be to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Ohio Gov. Bob Taft denied a clemency request by Byrd six hours before the stay was granted.

“A responsible jury, after hearing all the evidence, determined that Mr. Byrd stabbed Mr. Tewksbury and to date, 23 stages of appeals have affirmed his conviction and death sentence,” Taft said in a statement. “I can find no reasonable or compelling reason to disagree with these very thorough evaluations.”

The clemency denial followed a 10 to 1 vote by the Ohio Parole Board recommending against clemency.

Joe Case, a spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery, said that no one knows when a decision is going to come down or when a new execution date will be set if the court rules in favor of the state of Ohio.

“It’s anybody’s guess as to how long justice is going to be carried out for the family of Monte Tewksbury,” Case said. “But it’s in the hands of the court right now.”