OLYMPIA, Wash. — The state Supreme Court stayed the execution of Cal Coburn Brown on Thursday, just hours before he was to die for the murder of a 22-year-old woman.

Brown, 50, was scheduled to die by lethal injection early this morning at the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla for the 1991 slaying of Holly Washa.

In a 5-4 ruling, the high court, led by Justice Charles Johnson, stayed the execution while Brown’s case goes back to Thurston County Superior Court, where another Washington death row inmate, Darold Ray Stenson, was recently granted a May hearing on the constitutionality of Washington state’s lethal injection policy.

Brown’s lawyers contended that it would be wrong to execute Brown before the issue was settled by the court.

“I am incredibly grateful the Supreme Court has granted us this stay,” said one of Brown’s attorneys, Suzanne Elliott. “It was the right thing to do.”

Joining Johnson in the majority were Justices Barbara Madsen, Richard Sanders, Tom Chambers and Debra Stephens.

Dissenting were Chief Justice Gerry Alexander, Justices Susan Owens, Mary Fairhurst and Jim Johnson.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said he was extremely frustrated, and called the development “cruel and unusual punishment to the victim’s family.”

Washa’s relatives, including her siblings and her father, spent two days driving from Ogallala, Neb., to witness the execution, Satterberg said.

Seven friends and relatives of Washa, holding red roses and crying, gathered in the prison parking lot Thursday night.

“It’s very disappointing to me,” said Washa’s father, John, a 65-year-old retired truck driver. “Hopefully this next time will be it. It will all be over.”

The ruling came shortly after the conclusion of a three-hour hearing of the Washington State Clemency and Pardons Board. The board was split 2-2 on the question of whether Gov. Chris Gregoire should grant Brown’s request for a temporary reprieve or clemency from his execution. Since the board serves only an advisory function, any final decision would have come down to Gregoire.

“I respect the decision of the Court in this deliberative process,” Gregoire said in a statement issued after the court’s decision.

“This ruling merely delays the execution of Cal Coburn Brown,” Attorney General Rob McKenna said in a statement. “We believe the trial court will rule the state’s lethal injection protocol is constitutional.”

Brown was convicted of carjacking Washa at knifepoint near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. He robbed, raped and tortured the young woman from the south Seattle suburb of Burien before stabbing and strangling her.