Attorney Bill Salmon had asked for the extension on Thursday, saying that his wife just had lung surgery and he would not been able to complete his brief by Saturday's deadline.

About six hours before the deadline, the justices agreed to give him and co-counsel George F. Schaefer until Thursday to submit the paperwork. Unless they issue another delay or overturn Demps' sentence, he could now be executed as early as 5 p.m. June 7.

Demps, 49, was first sent to death row for two 1971 murders in Winter Garden.

But those death sentences were reduce to life prison terms when the U.S. Supreme court halted capital punishment across the country in 1972 because it was arbitrary.

In 1976, prison guards at Florida State Prison found Alfred Sturgis bleeding in his cell. On his way to a hospital, Sturgis told a prison guard that Demps and another inmate held him down while a third stabbed him.

Demps was sentenced to death. The other two were sentenced to life in prison.

His latest appeal is based on a memo by a prison employee written the day after Sturgis' murder.

The memo talks about the attack by a single "assailant" and Salmon argued that it could have been used to cast doubt on the prosecution testimony against Demps.