Repeatedly poking and prodding a death row inmate to find a vein for a lethal injection does not violate the Constitution, Alabama argued Friday in asking a federal court to dismiss death row inmate James Barber’s lawsuit to stop his July execution.

Barber’s legal team has asked a federal court in Montgomery to prohibit the state from killing him using lethal injection, arguing he should be put to death only using nitrogen gas. He said he was likely to suffer pain if killed via lethal injection and calling the 2022 controversial execution of Joe Nathan James Jr., and the called-off executions of Alan Miller and Kenneth Smith in the fall of 2022, botched.

But in Friday’s motion to U.S. District Chief Judge Emily C. Marks the Alabama Attorney General’s Office states that “Barber’s claim is wholly founded on a hypothetical and speculative claim: that his execution will follow the allegedly flawed course of the preparations for one recent execution and the unsuccessful preparations for two subsequent executions, despite the many successful executions that Alabama has carried out and the recent improvements to Alabama’s lethal injection protocol.”

Also, citing court rulings, the Attorney General’s Office argues that starting the intravenous line for the lethal injection by poking and prodding him with needles does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. “Barber alleges that he will endure pain if subjected to lethal injection in the future. But being ‘repeatedly prick[ed] … with a needle’ is not cruel and unusual punishment… and this claim is due to be dismissed.”

The Eighth Amendment also does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death, the motion states, citing a previous 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

Barber is also too late to challenge his method of execution, the Attorney General’s Office argues.

An attorney representing Barber had not responded to a request for comment about the Attorney General’s motion to dismiss as of Friday evening.

Barber’s lawsuit calls nitrogen hypoxia a “readily available alternative.” The nitrogen hypoxia method of execution, however, has never been tried before by any state. That method was approved by the Alabama Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey in 2018.

In June, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office claimed Barber’s July execution could be carried out using the new method, where an inmate would theoretically die by breathing in pure nitrogen without any source of oxygen and suffocating. But soon after the agency made their claim, the Alabama Department of Corrections told AL.com they were not ready to start nitrogen executions.

“The protocol for carrying out executions by this method is not yet complete,” an ADOC spokesperson said June 26.

Barber is set to die at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore sometime between midnight July 20 and 6 a.m. on July 21, rather than a specific date and time, under a new 30-hour-window protocol set by the state.

Barber, 64, was convicted in Madison County for the 2001 slaying of 75-year-old Dorothy Epps. Epps was beaten to death with Barber’s fists and a claw hammer in her Harvest home, according to court records. She suffered multiple skull fractures, head lacerations, brain bleeding, and rib fractures.

AL.com reporter Ivana Hrynkiw contributed to this report