Under an obscure 80-year-old Oklahoma law, Benjamin Brewer, a prisoner on death row at the state penitentiary in McAlester, could have been killed in his cell by a county sheriff next week.

But a state appeals court halted the proceedings on Friday and gave lawyers for all sides two weeks to submit further legal briefs.

"It's a very odd situation," said the prisoner's lawyer, Mitchell A. Lee.

It began two months ago in Tulsa County, where Mr. Brewer had been sentenced to death for killing a woman in 1978. On Aug. 27, a district judge there, B. R. Beasley, ordered Sheriff Stanley Glanz to execute Mr. Brewer on Oct. 29.

The order was based on the seldom-used law, which allows a sheriff to carry out an execution if no legal reason exists to delay it. David Moss, the Tulsa County District Attorney, had requested the order because no action had been taken in Mr. Brewer's case in 18 months.