COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man who is scheduled to die next week by firing squad is again asking that his execution be postponed and prison officials release more information about the state’s lethal injection drug and procedures.

Brad Sigmon made the choice after the state Supreme Court denied a stay request based on questions about the effectiveness of lethal injection

Opinion editor Matthew T. Hall explores the history of firing squads in the U.S. ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Brad Sigmon by bullet March 7.

South Carolina is scheduled next week to be the first state in 15 years and only the third in 49 to carry out an execution by firing squad. Brad Sigmon, 67, is on death row for the 2001 beating death with a baseball bat of his former girlfriend’s parents in Greenville County.