The U.S. Supreme Court has halted Virginia's planned execution of a man who bludgeoned a co-worker to death in 2001, just hours before he was set to be put to death.

Virginia had been preparing to execute Christopher Scott Emmett Wednesday night at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt for the murder of John Fenton Langley.

The 36-year-old beat Langley to death with the base of a brass lamp in a Danville motel room in order to rob him of cash to buy crack cocaine.

Several other states had stopped executions after the high court agreed to review claims that the method is unconstitutionally cruel.

The stay granted by the court Wednesday will last until a Richmond-based federal appeals court takes another look at the case. The justices did not comment further on their order.

The Supreme Court decided last month to review whether the lethal injection method most states use is cruel and unusual, based on a challenge from two inmates on death row in Kentucky. Virginia uses the same three-drug lethal injection cocktail as Kentucky.