COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that the state should take a break executions for the holidays.

The judges issued an order Thursday saying they would wait until at least Jan. 3 to sign the next death warrant.

South Carolina restarted his death chamber this year, after an unintentional 13-year hiatus in executions, in part because companies refused to sell state drugs needed for lethal injections if they could be identified. A privacy law now hides the names of suppliers and prison officials who may have obtained the drugs.

The one-page ruling offered no reason for the breakup. The judges could have issued a death sentence November 8 for Marion Bowman Jr. which would have been made on December 6.

Two detainees have already been executed. Four others pending appeal and facing execution schedule proposed by Supreme Court every five weeks asked the judges for a break during the holidays.

“Six executions in a row, with virtually no respite, will take a heavy toll on everyone involved, especially at such an important time of year for families,” the inmates’ attorneys wrote in court papers.

State attorneys responded that prison officials were willing to stick to the original schedule and pointed out that the state had previously carried out executions around the Christmas and New Year holidays, including five between Dec. 4 1998 and January 8, 1999.

State law requires executions to take place on the “fourth Friday after receipt of such notice,” so if judges issue a death warrant against Bowman on January 3, his execution would take place on January 31.

After authorizing the reinstatement of the death penalty, the Supreme Court promised in August to space out executions by five week intervals give prison staff and defense attorneys, who often represent multiple convicted inmates, time to address all necessary legal issues. That involves making sure lethal injection drugs as well as the electric chair and firing squad are ready, as well as researching and filing last-minute appeals.

Bowman, 44, was convicted of the shooting death of a friend, Kandee Martin, 21, whose burned body was found in the trunk of her car in Dorchester County in 2001. Bowman spent more than half his life on death row.

Bowman would be the third inmate executed since September, after the state obtained the drugs it needed to carry out the death sentence. Freddie Owens was put to death by lethal injection on September 20 and Richard Moore was executed on November 1.

South Carolina was one of the busiest states for executions, but that stopped in 2011 when the state struggled to procure lethal injection drugs as pharmaceutical companies feared they would have to reveal that they had sold these drugs to the authorities.

The state legislature has since passed a law allowing officials to keep suppliers of lethal injection drugs secret, and in July the state Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions.

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