South Carolina is preparing to execute the third inmate to be put to death since September as the state goes through a backlog of prisoners who exhausted their appeals while the state couldn’t find lethal injection drugs.

A federal district court denied a motion from a death row inmate to halt his execution which is set for Friday night.

The nation’s highest court turned down a death row inmate’s request to halt his execution Thursday, clearing the way for him to face the death chamber. Marion Bowman, 44, is slated to die by lethal injection at 6 p.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected what is likely the final appeal of a South Carolina inmate the day before his scheduled execution for a 2001 killing of a friend found dead in her burning car.