A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday.

South Carolina gives its death row inmates a choice between lethal injection, the electric chair and the firing squad. Mahdi chose the firing squad.

Mikal Mahdi’s execution came about a month after the first person in state history was killed in such a manner. Before that, no person had been killed by a firing squad in the United States in 15 years.

April 11 (UPI) -- South Carolina prison officials put a man to death by firing squad for the second time in just over a month when they executed Mikal Mahdi on Friday in Columbia.

A firing squad has executed a South Carolina man who killed an off-duty police officer decades ago. It is the second time the rare execution method has been used by the state in the past five weeks.

Mikal Mahdi, with a hood over his head, cried out as the three bullets to the heart hit him and his arms flexed. A red bull's-eye that was placed over his heart was pushed into the bullet wound in his chest.