A condemned Texas inmate is hoping the U.S. Supreme Court keeps him from the death chamber for the fatal slashing of an 11-year-old girl.

Bobby Wayne Woods is set for lethal injection Thursday evening in Huntsville for the April 1997 abduction, rape and slaying of Sarah Patterson, his ex-girlfriend's daughter.

But his attorneys contend his life should be spared because of a Supreme Court ban on executing mentally impaired people. Attorney Maurie Levin says his IQ hovers around 70 "the magical cutoff point for determining whether someone is mentally retarded."

State and federal courts repeatedly rejected Woods' mental impairment claims, though Texas' highest criminal court last year halted his execution hours before it was to occur.