Overview
- Harold Wayne Nichols did not select between electrocution and lethal injection, so the state will proceed by injection for his Dec. 11 execution date.
- Nichols has a two-week window to change his decision on the method, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.
- State law lets people convicted before January 1999 choose the electric chair, and Nichols picked electrocution for a 2020 date that was later reprieved during the pandemic.
- Tennessee adopted a single-drug pentobarbital protocol last December after an independent review and a 2022 pause found lethal injection drugs had not been properly tested.
- Attorneys for several death row prisoners are suing over the new protocol, with a trial reported as scheduled for April 2026.