Lawyers for Texas death row inmate Frances Newton has asked Texas Gov. Rick Perry for a 30-day stay to try to prove that authorities erred in linking her to a presumed murder weapon. Newton is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday night. She is set to become the first African-American woman executed in the state since Reconstruction. Meanwhile the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused on Monday to stop the execution and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously not to recommend that Perry commute the sentence to life in prison.