California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied a request for clemency Wednesday for a convicted murderer and rapist at the center of a frenetic legal battle over whether California should resume executions after a nearly five-year gap.

Attorneys for Albert Greenwood Brown had asked the governor to reduce his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, arguing that jurors in his 1982 murder trial never heard about the full extent of the mental impairment that affected his ability to control his impulses.

But Schwarzenegger noted that other courts had reviewed the same evidence and concluded it would not have affected the outcome of Brown’s trial. In addition, the governor cited the brutality of Brown’s crime and the “overwhelming” evidence pointing to his guilt.

Brown was convicted of raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl. Prosecutors accused him of making taunting phone calls to the victim’s mother after the girl vanished.

“The guilt and aggravating evidence is overwhelming, and the mitigation evidence is just the opposite,” Schwarzenegger wrote in his clemency denial. “Brown’s jury reasonably concluded that a penalty of death was appropriate in this case, and I have no reason to disagree.”

Brown, 56, was scheduled to be put to death Thursday evening, but a federal judge earlier this week ordered a halt to the execution.