A state judge has ordered a temporary stay for an Alabama Death Row inmate who is set to die next month for his mental state to be evaluated.

The Marion County judge ordered David Lee Roberts’ Aug. 21 execution by nitrogen gas be put on hold until he can have a psychiatric evaluation “as to whether (his) mental state is so distorted by a mental illness that he lacks a rational understanding of the state’s rationale for his execution.”

“Or simply put,” Circuit Judge Talmage Lee Carter wrote, “the issue is whether (his) concept of reality is so impaired that he cannot grasp the execution’s meaning and purpose or the link between his crime and its punishment.”

Roberts was convicted in the April 1992 killing of Annetra Jones. At his trial, the jury recommended by a vote of 7 to 5 that he be sentenced to life in prison. But a judge overrode that decision and sent him to death row anyway, where he landed in 1994.

Carter requested a written report from the evaluation, and listed questions that he wanted answered. Among them were if Roberts, 59, suffers from a severe mental illness and if he has a rational understanding of why he’s to be put to death.

If Roberts isn’t competent to be executed, the judge wrote, the report should include treatment options and where those could be completed.

Roberts lawyers from the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama had asked the judge to stay the upcoming execution earlier his month, arguing that Roberts has Schizophrenia and has been diagnosed by prison doctors. They said Roberts “has endured psychosis and mood disorders since early adulthood —conditions that have worsened on Alabama’s death row.”

“He is floridly psychotic now, despite having taken prescribed anti-psychotic medication for over 20 years. His extreme paranoia, auditory hallucinations, and delusions have left him without any understanding of his mental illness.”

Roberts’ lawyers included in their ask to the judge snippets of medical records and notes from medical providers. One psychologist who saw him earlier this year noted that Roberts was hearing voices and delusions, and was held in solitary because of it. Other death row inmates have told the legal team that Roberts is often screaming and setting his things on fire in his cell.

“In fact, when counsel met with him in mid-April to attempt a discussion about the State’s pending motion to set his execution date,” wrote Roberts’ lawyer in the motion, “he was so overwhelmed by delusions that his tattoos were manipulating his mind, he had attempted to burn them off his skin.”

When the crime happened more than 30 years ago, according to court records, Roberts had been staying with a man who was a well-known local criminal. That man’s girlfriend, Jones, was staying at the same house and was sleeping on a couch on April 22, 1992. Records show Roberts left work and went to the house that afternoon to pack his things. He stole money from Jones’ wallet, court records said, and then shot her three times in the head with a rifle.

Following the shooting, Roberts poured flammable liquid on her body and set a piece of paper on fire, pushing it under the couch, according to court records. He set another fire in the house, and stole more items.

He confessed to the crime, but his lawyers said those statements were made after hours of interrogations and culminated in over 25 hours of questioning. He told police that he committed the murder after the man whose house he was living in had ordered him to and threatened Roberts’ family.

Roberts’ lawyers and advocates said his mental illness set in long before Jones’ murder. According to a website dedicated to his clemency efforts and court records, Roberts had attempted suicide several times before the murder and went AWOL from his Army unit.

After Roberts’ team asked for the competency exam earlier this month, the state didn’t disagree. They asked the judge in a filing to order an “expedited” evaluation.