South Carolina has scheduled the execution of an inmate convicted of fatally shooting an off-duty police officer, which would make him the fifth person the state put to death since it resumed executions in the fall following an involuntary 13-year pause.

Mikal Mahdi, 41, is set to be executed on April 11 at 6 p.m. at a prison in Columbia, the state Supreme Court announced Friday.

Mahdi can choose to die by lethal injection, the electric chair or a firing squad. He must make a decision by March 28, or he will be killed by the electric chair.

On March 7, Brad Sigmon became the first prisoner executed by firing squad in the U.S. in 15 years when he was killed in South Carolina. Only three other inmates in the U.S. have been executed by this method since 1976, and all were in Utah.

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Three other prisoners have been put to death in South Carolina since the state resumed executions in September. Freddie Owens on Sept. 20, Richard Moore on Nov. 1 and Marion Bowman Jr. on Jan. 31 all died by lethal injection. Sigmon chose the firing squad due to concerns about the prolonged suffering the three other inmates had faced when they were killed by lethal injection.

The court postponed a potential sixth execution for Steven Bixby, who was convicted in the killing of two police officers in an Abbeville County land dispute in December 2003. Bixby was set to be put to death in May, but the court ruled that a judge must first determine if he is mentally competent.

A psychologist said Bixby understands what led to his death sentence, but that he also believes blood found on his clothes the night of the killings contains the DNA of Jesus Christ.

Mahdi’s attorney, David Weiss, said his client had a long history of troubled behavior starting as a child.

As early as the second grade, Mahdi suffered from mental despair and discussed self-harm, Weiss said. He already had a criminal record by the time he was a teenager, spending weeks in solitary confinement after being convicted of breaking and entering and attacking a police officer in Virginia.

“He was repeatedly failed by his own family and the justice system, who neglected to see him for who he was: a wounded child in need of support,” Weiss said in a statement. “Mikal’s story is one of trauma, neglect, and the many missed opportunities for providing him the safety and compassion that every child should have.”

Mahdi stole a gun and a car in Virginia on July 14, 2004, when he was 21, arrest records show. The next day, he shot and killed a North Carolina store clerk as the clerk was checking his identification. A couple of days later, he carjacked someone at an intersection in Columbia, South Carolina.

On July 18, 2004, while on the run after those crimes, Mahdi hid in Orangeburg, South Carolina, public safety officer James Myers’ shed. Mahdi ambushed Meyers when the officer returned from a birthday celebration for his wife, sister and daughter, prosecutors said.

Myers, 56, was shot eight or nine times, including twice in the head after falling to the ground. A pathologist testified that at least seven of the shots would have been fatal.

Mahdi then set Myers’ body on fire and ran away. Myers’ wife discovered her husband’s dead body in the shed, which they had used for the backdrop of their wedding.

On July 21, 2004, Mahdi was taken into custody in Florida. When one of the officers involved in his arrest learned what he was wanted for in South Carolina, he thanked Mahdi for not shooting at him. Mahdi told him that the only reason he did not was because he was skeptical that he could successfully shoot two officers and their K-9 and get away with it.

While behind bars, Mahdi was caught three times with tools he could have used to escape. One was an Allen wrench and the others were homemade handcuff keys, including one that was found under his tongue at his trial.

On death row, Mahdi stabbed a guard and struck another worker with a concrete block. On three occasions, prison staff found sharpened metal in his cell that could be used as a knife.

During his trial, Mahdi’s lawyers said their client was the second son of a woman who was wedded in an arranged marriage at 16-years-old. His family described a chaotic childhood, although nobody testified about abuse or mental illness.

Mahdi pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced by Judge Clifton Newman, who at the time told The Post and Courier that he was not sure he believed in the death penalty, but the case became bigger than his beliefs.

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“My challenge and my commitment throughout my judicial career has been to temper justice with mercy and to seek to find the humanity in every defendant that I sentence,” Newman said as he handed down Mahdi’s punishment. “That sense of humanity seems not to exist in Mikal Deen Mahdi”

Once one of the busiest for executions, South Carolina resumed executions in September after a 13-year pause caused in part by the state having difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs due to pharmaceutical companies’ concerns that they would have to disclose they had sold the drugs to state officials.

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The state legislature then passed a shield law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers private. The legislature also approved the firing squad as another execution method over difficulties obtaining the drugs.

South Carolina has executed 47 inmates since the death penalty was resumed in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, the state was carrying out an average of three executions per year. Only nine states have killed more inmates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.