Tennessee death row inmate Harold Wayne Nichols has declined to choose between the electric chair and lethal injection for his scheduled Dec. 11 execution, leaving the state to default to lethal injection under current law.
Nichols was sentenced to death in 1990 for the 1988 rape and murder of 21-year-old Karen Pulley, a Chattanooga State University student. According to Tennessee Department of Correction spokesperson Dorinda Carter, he has two weeks to change his selection.
Nichols previously opted for electrocution ahead of a planned 2020 execution, but that execution was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under Tennessee law, inmates convicted before January 1999 may choose electrocution instead of the state’s preferred method of lethal injection.
Electrocution remains rare. The electric chair has been used only five times nationwide in the past decade, all in Tennessee. However, several states — including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, and South Carolina — still authorize the method. In South Carolina, electrocution is the default option when lethal injection drugs are unavailable under a 2021 law.
When Nichols made his earlier choice, Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol involved a three-drug cocktail that defense attorneys argued was deeply flawed. Their concerns gained traction in 2022 when Gov. Bill Lee paused all executions and ordered an independent review of the state’s death penalty procedures.
That investigation — led by former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton — found that none of the drugs used in the executions of seven inmates since 2018 had been properly tested, raising serious procedural concerns. Several scheduled executions, including a second date for Nichols, were postponed during the review.
In response, the Department of Correction issued a revised execution protocol last December that relies on a single drug: pentobarbital. Multiple death row inmates have since filed legal challenges to the new protocol, with a trial set for April.
Nichols confessed to Pulley’s murder as well as several other rapes in the Chattanooga area. Although he expressed remorse during his trial, he admitted he likely would have continued his violent attacks had he not been arrested.
“I’d just get these feelings and I’d do it. I can’t describe it or understand it,” Nichols said in archived trial footage obtained by WDEF. Tearfully addressing the jury, he added: “If I could trade places with Karen Pulley, I would.”
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