The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday cleared the way for an Indiana inmate to be executed for the 1981 slayings of a man and his pregnant wife in their home. The justices voted 6-3 late Thursday to overturn a federal appeals court decision that granted Marvin Bieghler a stay of execution to challenge the legality of lethal injection, even though the high court had rejected a similar appeal just hours earlier.

Bieghler, 58, an admitted drug dealer, was on death row for the shooting deaths of a man and his pregnant wife. Gov. Mitch Daniels on Thursday had turned down a clemency request. Bieghler, like Florida inmate Clarence Hill, challenged lethal injection as unconstitutional. Hill contends the three chemicals used in Florida's method of execution - the same as those used in Indiana - cause pain, making his execution cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court said Wednesday it would hear arguments in Hill's case, with the justices to decide whether a federal appeals court was wrong to prevent Hill from challenging the lethal injection method. The Supreme Court has never found a specific form of execution to be cruel and unusual, and the Florida case does not give the court that opportunity. The justices could, however, spell out what options are available to inmates with last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death.

Bieghler's attorney, Brent Westerfeld, told justices in a motion Thursday that a "grave injustice may arise" if Bieghler was executed while Hill's case is pending because there is a chance that Hill will win the right to pursue his claim against lethal injection and eventually win. The state attorney general's office argued that Bieghler's appeal was a delay tactic and that Indiana's chemical injection method of execution, used since 1996, was constitutional. The state argued that the Constitution does not guarantee a pain-free execution.