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The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of Antonio Richardson, about an hour after vacating a stay issued earlier in the day by a federal appeals court. Richardson had been scheduled to be put to death at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday at the Potosi Correctional Center for his role in the 1991 deaths of sisters Robin and Julie Kerry on April 4, 1991.The 11:05 p.m. EST decision of the Supreme Court is separate from one issued just before 10 p.m. that vacated a stay issued by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. The 8th Circuit had ordered the execution halted pending the outcome of a Supreme Court hearing involving a convicted killer from Texas named John Paul Penry. Like Penry, Richardson is borderline mentally retarded. The Supreme Court said it will use the Penry case to clarify how much opportunity jurors in death penalty cases must have to consider the defendant's mental capacity. Richardson was just 16 at the time of the killings. Several groups from around the world had expressed opposition to the execution, including Amnesty International, the Children and Family Justice Center, the Association for Retarded Citizens, Human Rights Watch and the European Union. Only one other execution in the last 40 years in the U.S. involved someone who committed the crime at age 16 or younger. A convicted killer in Oklahoma executed in 1999 was also 16 at the time of his crime.