Gov. Phil Bredesen has granted a 4-month reprieve to death-row inmate Philip Workman because of an ongoing federal criminal investigation that might be related to the capital case.

Workman was scheduled to be executed Sept. 24 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, more than two decades after his felony murder conviction for the death of Memphis police Lt. Ronald Oliver.

But at the recommendation of state Attorney General Paul Summers, Bredesen has decided to grant a reprieve that will expire Jan. 15, when Summers could ask the Tennessee Supreme Court to set a new execution date.

"So long as there are outstanding issues that may be related to this case, the only proper thing to do is to wait until those questions have been answered," Bredesen said. "I am a supporter of the death penalty but committed that it be carried out in a judicious manner."

The governor and the attorney general would not disclose the nature of the ongoing 15-month federal criminal inquiry, but the time frame dovetails with a continuing investigation into a 2002 attack on a Shelby County medical examiner who has played a crucial role in post-conviction evidentiary hearings.

Summers said that he does not think the federal investigation calls into question the immediate circumstances that led to Workman's conviction and that he thinks it does not affect the validity of the death sentence.

Because of the governor's decision, Workman's attorneys yesterday afternoon withdrew their motion for a stay of execution in a Memphis federal court. U.S. District Court Judge Bernice Donald will hold the case in abeyance pending the outcome of the federal criminal investigation and the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals' consideration of the Tennessee death row case of Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman.

Waiting on the appeals court to decide the Abdur'Rahman case probably will delay the Workman proceedings past Jan. 15, Workman attorney Kelley Henry said.

Standing side by side at a morning news conference at the state Capitol, neither the governor nor the attorney general would detail the particulars of the federal case that prompted the reprieve.

Noting the unusual confluence of a federal criminal case and a scheduled state execution, Summers said he had received special dispensation from federal authorities to mention the investigation's relevance to Workman's case.

Summers said that the federal investigation originated in the Western District of Tennessee about 15 months ago and that he was briefed about its bearing on the Workman case within the past 2 weeks.

Asked specifically whether the federal investigation was related to the Memphis Police Department, the Shelby County district attorney general's office or the Shelby County medical examiner's office, Bredesen and Summers would not elaborate.

The governor said that he has been briefed by those involved in the case: "From my perspective, it certainly has relevance to the case."

The 15-month time frame, however, matches the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigation into an attack on Shelby County Medical Examiner O.C. Smith. He was discovered June 1, 2002, bound and gagged outside his office where he had been working late.

He reported that someone had thrown a caustic substance into his face, then strapped a bomb to his body. He was not seriously injured. He had been threatened in letters accusing him of lying at court hearings regarding Workman.

Smith has been involved with the Workman case as a prosecution witness in legal proceedings that occurred long after Workman was sentenced to death.

"It is a strange, bizarre and unusual case,'' said James Cavanaugh, chief agent of the ATF's Nashville field division, which covers Tennessee and Alabama.

"It is an active investigation, and no one has been charged," Cavanaugh said yesterday. He would not comment further about the investigation.

Asked specifically about the governor's announcement, Cavanaugh said he would refer any additional questions back to state officials. The U.S. attorney's office in Memphis would not comment yesterday.

Workman was robbing a Memphis Wendy's restaurant in 1981 when police, responding to a silent alarm, raced to the scene. They encountered him outside the restaurant.

Prosecutors contend that Workman fired his handgun until it wouldn't fire anymore and that he fired the shot that killed Oliver. Defense attorneys counter that the ballistics evidence proves that it was a police officer's bullet, not one of Workman's, that felled the police lieutenant.

In a 2000 report, Smith referred to a previously undisclosed X-ray, taken of Oliver's body after he had been killed. The X-ray had not been disclosed to defense attorneys before Workman's 1982 trial or in response to defense attorneys' requests in 1990 and 1995 when they were seeking all evidence pertaining to his case.

Smith testified in a 2001 evidentiary hearing on newly surfaced Workman evidence that he was convinced the fatal bullet came from Workman's gun, not from a police weapon.

Death penalty opponent Randy Tatel, the executive director of Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing, listened to the governor's announcement at the Capitol and said afterward: ''Governor Bredesen is a thoughtful and ethical individual when it comes to his stated position that, while he supports the death penalty, each and every case is of concern to him in terms of how it is administered in the judicial system."

Workman learned of the reprieve in a phone call with one of his attorneys:

"He was shocked like we were," defense attorney Henry said. "He's relieved, and he's just as curious about this as we all are."

Governor holds power to pardon

The governor has the authority to pardon anyone who has been convicted of a crime, one of the constitutional checks and balances to the power of the state courts.

The Tennessee Constitution, in Article III, Section 6, states that the governor, "shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons, after conviction, except in cases of impeachment."

Gov. Phil Bredesen signed the Philip Workman reprieve yesterday at the recommendation of Attorney General Paul Summers, whose office has for years been arguing that Workman deserves to die in Tennessee's death chamber.

So far, Bredesen has received two clemency requests from death row inmates.

Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman asked for the governor to grant him clemency, but he did so before the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that it would hear arguments in the inmate's case - meaning that the governor has not had to make a decision on his case. That case is still on appeal.

Workman had asked for Bredesen to review his case, too, but he withdrew that application when he learned that Bredesen would refer his case to the state parole board, which already had heard the case and unanimously recommended to then-Gov. Don Sundquist that Workman be executed. Workman has said that appearing again before the board is not worth it.

The governor has said that he intends to review all death penalty cases to ensure that the judicial system has given defendants a fair hearing.