TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Azya Thornton on Dec 12, 2025

Tennessee death row inmate Harold Wayne Nichols was executed by lethal injection Dec. 11 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, The Tennessean reports. Nichols was pronounced dead at 10:39 a.m. CST He had been on death row for 35 years and was sentenced to death for the beating and rape of 20-year-old Karen Pulley in Chattanooga. Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday he would not halt the execution after Nichols requested clemency. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals also denied two of Nichols’ motions. The state executed Oscar Smith in May and Byron Black in October. In March, nine men on death row, including Smith and Black, filed a lawsuit challenging the use of pentobarbital in Tennessee’s new lethal injection protocol citing the "risk of tortuous death."