NASHVILLE, TN - Gov. Phil Bredesen has granted a 15-day reprieve to convicted murderer Sedley Alley, eight hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection for a brutal rape and murder in 1985. If the execution had proceeded, it would have been only the second time since 1960 that Tennessee has put an inmate to death. 

On Monday, the State Board of Probation and Parole voted 4-3 to recommend that the governor issue the reprieve to allow further DNA testing of evidence in the brutal rape and murder of 19-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Suzanne M. Collins at the Millington Naval Air Station outside Memphis.

"Based on the overwhelming weight of the evidence against him, I believe Mr. Alley to be guilty of this heinous crime," Bredesen said in a statement. "However, I am acutely aware that in capital cases mistakes cannot be corrected, and so out of respect for the Board's recommendation, I am reluctantly issuing a reprieve for 15 days."

Bredesen ordered Alley's attorneys to request the new testing in the courts of Shelby County, where the crime took place. If the court rejects the testing or the results fail to exonerate Alley, the execution would proceed, the governor said.

Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summers said in a statement that two courts already had decided DNA testing would be "worthless" in the Alley case.

"Therefore we will be asking the Court to set the execution on a date soon after the reprieve expires," Summers said in the statement.