McKINNEY, Texas—Attorneys for a killer who had been scheduled to die Wednesday say he should get a new trial because his trial judge and the prosecutor admitted having a secret sexual relationship that began years before his murder convictions.

Charles Dean Hood won a reprieve Tuesday, but not because of the alleged affair.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said it will reconsider its previous dismissal of an appeal by Hood that challenged jury instructions. The court said developments in the law regarding jury nullification instructions made reconsidering its ruling prudent.

At the same time, the court dismissed claims by Hood’s attorneys that he was denied a fair trial because of the alleged relationship between retired Judge Verla Sue Holland and former Collin County District Attorney Tom O’Connell. O’Connell and Holland gave depositions under a court order Hood’s attorneys won on Monday.

The reprieve came around the time Hood’s lawyers sent Gov. Rick Perry a letter saying that Holland and O’Connell “admitted under oath that they had an intimate sexual relationship for many years.”

Attorneys for Holland and O’Connell said they were under court order not to discuss their clients’ testimony.

“The intimate sexual relationship between the judge and the district attorney began several years prior to the trial of Mr. Hood,” lawyer Greg Wiercioch said in his letter to the governor re-emphasizing his earlier petition for a 30-day reprieve.

Wiercioch said the judge and prosecutor confirmed they kept their relationship secret.

Bill Boyd, Holland’s lawyer, said Hood’s lawyers should not have mentioned the testimony in their letter to Perry.

O’Connell’s attorney, Richard A. Sayles, declined to confirm what Wiercioch said about the relationship in the letter to Perry.

Laura Burstein, a spokeswoman for the Texas Defender Service, an anti-death penalty legal group whose attorneys spearheaded the appeal, said the court’s reprieve was limited to Hood’s punishment. She said Hood’s attorneys believed Hood deserves an entire new trial “given that the judge and prosecutor were having an affair.”

Hood is a former bouncer at a topless club who was 20 when he was arrested in Indiana for the fatal shootings of Tracie Lynn Wallace, 26, an ex-dancer, and her boyfriend, Ronald Williamson, 46, at Williamson’s home in Plano in 1989.

Julie Wallace, whose sister was one of the two victims, characterized the deposition effort as “another delay tactic, if you ask me.