HOUSTON -- The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has been asked to lift a reprieve and allow Wednesday's scheduled execution of a Texas man condemned for the killing of a 12-year-old girl.

The Texas attorney general's office argued in an appeal Tuesday that a federal district judge in Houston improperly granted a reprieve for 44-year-old Jonathan Green.

Green's lawyers contend he's mentally incompetent for lethal injection in Huntsville for abducting, raping and strangling Christina Neal in 2000. They both lived in Dobbin, about 45 miles northwest of Houston in Montgomery County. Her body was found in his home about a month after she disappeared.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas ruled Green's due process was violated when a state judge two years ago found him mentally competent.