A federal judge has denied a request by Alabama death row inmate James Edward Barber for a preliminary injunction to block his execution by lethal injection.

Barber’s execution is scheduled for a 30-hour period that starts on July 20. He would be the first inmate put to death in Alabama since Gov. Kay Ivey called for a pause in executions last year.

U.S. Chief District Judge Emily C. Marks of the Middle District of Alabama ruled Friday that Barber failed to show that his execution by lethal injection would violate the 8th Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Marks held a hearing in the case Wednesday. Barber testified remotely by video from Holman Correctional Facility. Barber based his claims on problems Alabama has had establishing intravenous connections on its last three scheduled executions.

Barber asked the court to bar the state from executing him by any method other than nitrogen hypoxia. But Marks wrote that Barber failed to request nitrogen hypoxia during a time when the state allowed condemned inmates to make that choice in 2018. The Legislature approved lethal injection executions in 2018, but the Alabama Department of Corrections said it is not ready to carry out the procedure, which has never been done in any state.

“Barber offers no authority for his request that the Court order his execution by a method he did not elect, and thus has waived, under Alabama law,” Marks wrote. “Further, even if the Court were to order that Barber could only be executed by nitrogen hypoxia, such an order would effectively stay his execution for an indefinite period since the Defendants are not prepared to conduct executions by this method. Thus, for all intents and purposes, Barber’s motion for preliminary injunction operates as a motion to stay his execution.”

Barber was sentenced to death in 2004 for the murder of Dorothy Epps in 2001. Barber beat the 75-year-old woman to death with his fists and a claw hammer in her home in Madison County.