Tennessee death row inmate Harold Wayne Nichols will be executed by lethal injection after declining to choose between the state’s two approved methods of execution — lethal injection and the electric chair. Nichols, who was convicted in 1990 for the rape and murder of 21-year-old student Karen Pulley, is scheduled to be executed on December 11.
Under Tennessee law, inmates convicted before January 1999 may choose electrocution. Nichols had previously selected that method for his 2020 execution, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The electric chair has been used only five times in the U.S. over the past decade, all in Tennessee. Nichols’ earlier preference for electrocution stemmed from concerns raised by attorneys about the state’s multi-drug lethal injection protocol.
Following a 2022 independent review ordered by Gov. Bill Lee, it was revealed that Tennessee had failed to properly test the drugs used in executions since 2018. The state has since adopted a new single-drug protocol using pentobarbital, which remains the subject of an ongoing lawsuit filed by death row inmates’ attorneys.
Nichols still has two weeks to change his decision regarding the method of execution.
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