COLUMBUS — Lawyers for condemned killer Jay D. Scott on Monday asked a federal appeals court for more time to prepare an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

        They want the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to wait 30 days before sending the case to U.S. District Court, where Mr. Scott's current appeal began, said Timothy Sweeney, one of Mr. Scott's court-appointed attorneys.

        Mr. Scott's lawyers argue that because he is a schizophrenic, executing him would violate the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The 6th Circuit Wednesday refused to hear Mr. Scott's latest appeal.

        The U.S. Supreme Court last month declined to hear an appeal on the issue of Mr. Scott's competence to be executed for the 1983 murder of a Cleveland delicatessen owner. Mr. Scott's lawyers then asked the federal courts to look at the state's case on the competency issue. Both the U.S. District Court in Cleveland and the 6th Circuit declined to hear the case.

        Christopher Frey, the chief of the appeals division of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office, which secured Mr. Scott's conviction and sentence in 1984, said it is “inconceivable” that the U.S. Supreme Court would agree to hear Mr. Scott's case, having turned it down once.

        “I can't in good conscience understand how the 6th Circuit would issue a stay in this case,” Mr. Frey said.

        Once the 6th Circuit returns the case to the District Court, Mr. Frey and Attorney General Betty Montgomery will be free to ask the Ohio Supreme Court to set an execution date.

        Mr. Scott has come within an hour of execution twice — April 17 and May 15 — before courts stopped the proceedings.

        He would be the first Ohio inmate to be executed against his will since 1963.

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