Inmate Declines to Choose Between the Chair, Injection

A Tennessee death row inmate has opted not to choose how he will die, leaving the state to default to lethal injection for his upcoming execution. Harold Wayne Nichols, convicted in 1990 for the 1988 rape and murder of Chattanooga State University student Karen Pulley, had the option to decide between lethal injection and the electric chair, but declined to make a selection, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction. Nichols still has two weeks to change his mind regarding the method. His execution is scheduled for Dec. 11, the AP reports.

Nichols originally chose the electric chair for a scheduled 2020 execution, but that date was postponed due to the COVID pandemic. Tennessee allows inmates convicted before 1999 to pick electrocution over the state's default method. While several states technically allow the electric chair, it has only been used five times in the past decade—all in Tennessee.

At the time Nichols first opted for electrocution, the state's lethal injection protocol involved three drugs, a process lawyers for inmates criticized as flawed. Their concerns gained traction in 2022 when Governor Bill Lee halted executions after an independent review revealed the drugs used for executions since 2018 had not been properly tested. Tennessee has since switched to a new protocol using a single drug, pentobarbital, for lethal injections.