Richard Bernard Moore had been scheduled to be put to death on Friday. Moore, 55, has been on death row for over twenty years for the alleged1999 killing of a convenience store clerk in Spartanburg County. He would be the first person executed in South Carolina for ten years. In fact, they have not been able to secure the drugs required since their last stock expired in 2013.

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Three drugs are needed for a successful death, the sedative pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride, none of which they have. Many drug manufacturers have been hesitant to give the doses to prisons due to anti-death penalty activists. Lawmakers have also tried to bring forth a bill to require death row prisoners to die by the electric chair if lethal injection drugs are not available.

Previously an appeal for his stay of execution noted, “Without a stay of execution, SCDC will be allowed to operate in near-total secrecy as it prepares for and carries out Moore’s execution in less than three weeks.”

Moore is one of 37 people, who are on South Carolina’s death row.