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.

Hold those giant catamarans just a minute, you bickering billionaires.

The America's Cup appears to be headed away from a rare one-on-one showdown between American and Swiss crews and back to its traditional multichallenger format following a ruling by a New York appeals court Tuesday that went against a San Francisco yacht club that backs Silicon Valley maverick Larry Ellison.

In the latest 180-degree turn in a yearlong court fight, the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division ruled 3-2 that Spain's Club Nautico Espanol de Vela should be the Challenger of Record, giving it the right to negotiate terms of the next competition with the current America's Cup holder, Alinghi of Switzerland.

The decision, based on what the court said was "ambiguous" language in the Deed of Gift, the century-old document that governs the America's Cup, reversed a lower-court ruling that made the Golden Gate Yacht Club the Challenger of Record.

Although Golden Gate Yacht Club can file a last-chance appeal to the New York State Court of Appeals in Albany, Tuesday's ruling leads the way for a return to the traditional format in which the winner of a challenger elimination series races the defending champion for the oldest trophy in international sports.

BMW Oracle Racing, backed by the GGYC, and Alinghi have been preparing for an expected one-on-one match in 90-foot multihull boats, the result of a lower-court ruling that GGYC was the Challenger of Record.

GGYC said it will consider the implications of Tuesday's ruling before deciding its next step.

Twenty-seven years later, Morton Grove has repealed its law, bowing to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that affirmed homeowners' right to keep guns for self-defense.

It's one of several Illinois communities — reluctant to spend money on legal fights — rushing to repeal their gun bans after the court struck down a Washington, D.C., ban, even as cities such as Chicago and San Francisco stand firm.

Mayor Richard Krier acknowledges Morton Grove's place in history, but said that didn't affect the village board's 5-1 decision Monday to amend its ordinance to allow the possession of handguns. The village still bans the sale of guns.

"There hasn't been any pressure" to keep the ban, Krier said, noting that the village's ordinance has been under scrutiny since the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Washington case. He also pointed out that the mostly residential village has never had a big problem with gun crime.

Though Morton Grove's gun ban is five years younger than Washington's, it's considered the first in the country because the village is a municipality, whereas D.C. is a federal district.

Gun rights advocates hailed the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision affirming that individuals have a right to own guns and keep them in their homes for self-defense.

The state Senate voted to repeal the law earlier this month and Gov. Deval Patrick has said he will sign it.

Opponents say repealing the ban will attract many out-of-state gay couples to Massachusetts for marriages.

Some proponents say that would be an economic boon for the state, and would allow Massachusetts to compete with California.

A California Supreme Court ruling recently made gay marriage legal there with no residency requirement.

In the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court, the American Trucking Associations said it does not oppose efforts to clean up the air but is concerned that other measures in the plans violate federal laws by unfairly regulating prices, routes and services.

The lawsuit claims the regulations favor bigger trucking companies over independent truckers and limit the number of trucks allowed to enter the ports, reducing market competition.

Truckers must agree to the plans to retain access to the ports after Oct. 1.

"It's a barrier to entry," said Curtis Whalen of the Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference, an affiliate of the 37,000-member association. "We don't think the ports have the legal ability to do that."

The association wants the court to permanently restrict the plans from being implemented.

Defendants named in the lawsuit include the cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach along with their harbor departments and commissions.

"We feel that the program is legally defensible and we see no problem in continuing to move forward with this plan," said Lee Peterson, a spokesman for the Port of Long Beach.

Both cities passed plans earlier this year aimed at reducing truck pollution at the ports by as much as 80 percent. The plans would require trucks to meet tougher 2007 federal emissions standards by Jan. 12, 2012, along with a $35 cargo fee to pay for the newer, cleaner-running trucks.