International attention has been focused on the execution of convicted killer Jose Medellin scheduled for Tuesday. The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, said the Mexican-born Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death row around the nation should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether a 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests.

Medellin, now 33, is the first among the 50 who is set to die.

His attorneys contend Medellin was denied the protections of the Vienna Convention, which calls for people arrested to have access to their home country's consular officials. He has been in the United States since the age of 3.

"The United States' word should not be so carelessly broken, nor its standing in the international community so needlessly compromised," Medellin's attorneys said, seeking a reprieve in a filing late last week with the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court had not issued any ruling as of Sunday.

President Bush has asked states to review the cases. Texas has refused to budge.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico warned of possible protests there Tuesday.

Medellin's lawyers went to the Supreme Court after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, refused to stop the lethal injection. The justices ruled in March that neither the President nor the international court can force Texas' hand.

Judges from the 11th U.S. Circuit in Atlanta issued an injunction Wednesday ordering the action while a discrimination lawsuit filed by Beta Upsilon Chi against the school moves forward.

The fraternity hasn't been allowed to join the off-campus system of fraternities and sororities because its rules bar religious discrimination. The fraternity requires its members to be Christians.

The fraternity's lawsuit claims the fraternity is deprived of official benefits given to other groups, including access to meeting space and the ability to advertise and recruit members on campus.

Jose Medellin, set to die Tuesday for his participation in the gang rape and beating deaths of two Houston girls, said that the high court should block his execution until Texas grants him a new hearing to comply with an international court ruling.

The state has so far refused, and the court ruled in March that neither President Bush nor the international court can force Texas' hand. But Medellin says Congress or the Texas legislature should be given a chance to pass a law ordering a new hearing before he can be executed.

Four Democratic lawmakers have introduced such a bill in Congress, but it probably will not be acted upon this year. The Texas legislature does not meet again until January.

Medellin is one of roughly 50 Mexicans on death rows around the nation who were denied prompt access to their country's consular officials after being arrested in the United States. The access is guaranteed by international treaty.

Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. had acknowledged calling the teens "trouble makers" and "a violent bunch" but insisted he could be impartial. Judge Thomas M. Yeager, who was asked by defense attorneys to review the case, found there was an appearance of impropriety and recused Mauffray.

"The right to a fair and impartial judge is of particular importance in the present cases," Yeager wrote.

Six black teens were arrested and initially charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with a December 4, 2006, attack on fellow Jena High School student Justin Barker, who is white. The charges were later reduced.

Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw now face aggravated second-degree battery charges. Beard is charged as a juvenile.

The justices in a 5-4 vote late Wednesday stopped the execution by injection of Thomas Arthur "pending further orders of this Court." Arthur, 66, was scheduled to die Thursday, more than 26 years after he was convicted of killing Troy Wicker Jr. of Muscle Shoals.

It was the third time Arthur received a stay on the eve of his execution.

"My reaction is we finally look forward to the opportunity to examine fully Mr. Arthur's claim of innocence by assessing witness testimony and DNA evidence," said defense attorney Suhana S. Han. "That is the right result."

State Attorney General Troy King called the stay a serious setback for the prosecution.

"The crimes against Troy Wicker's family continue to compound," he said. "There is a good chance he is going to escape his sentence before all is said and done."

Han said Arthur "was absolutely ecstatic."

"Having to face execution is something that most of us can never really imagine," she said.

Arthur's attorneys sought a stay from the governor and the courts by using Monday's sworn statement by Bobby Ray Gilbert, who claimed he killed Wicker. Gilbert is serving a life sentence for a different murder.

But Wicker's widow, who served 10 years of a life sentence for hiring the killer, told attorney general investigators that she never met Gilbert.

"I hired and paid money to Thomas Arthur, not Bobby Gilbert, to kill Troy Wicker," Judy Wicker said in a statement Monday.

Han said a hearing was needed to assess the credibility of Gilbert and Wicker.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the convictions of Michael Hayward and Michael Stern, who were convicted in July 2006 and sentenced to six months in prison.

Hayward, 57, and Stern, 55, who had worked for Van der Moolen Specialists USA LLC, were the only specialists still facing prison time after convictions at trial. They had been accused of stealing $1 million apiece by skimming small amounts of money from stocks they oversaw.

The ruling all but ended a prosecution in which the government accused the powerful floor supervisors of using their inside positions to earn an estimated $20 million illegally for themselves and their firms.

Specialists play the crucial role of matching buyers and sellers in individual stocks, though their numbers have declined as computers have taken a larger role in the trading of securities.

Prosecutors targeted the specialists after concluding that they sometimes pocketed pennies for themselves or their firms from each trade by purchasing a stock and quickly flipping it for a slightly higher price.

Defense lawyers had argued that it would be absurd for highly paid specialists — many of them have seven-figure incomes — to try to make minuscule amounts of money each day in such a way. Instead, they said, prosecutors were highlighting innocent mistakes made on fewer than 1 percent of trades each specialist handled.

Michael Hayward and Michael Stern were convicted in July 2006 after they were accused of stealing $1 million apiece. Prosecutors said they had skimmed small amounts of money from stocks they were entrusted to oversee.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals notes that the government had already conceded that the conduct of the men was not manipulative. The court says their conduct was not deceptive either.

Hayward and Stern had worked for Van der Moolen Specialists USA LLC.