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tennessee Harold Wayne Nichols is being prepared to be executed by lethal injection Thursday for the rape and murder of 20-year-old schoolgirl Karen Pulley in 1988. Chattanooga state University.
Nichols confessed to murdering Pulley, as well as raping several other women in the Chattanooga area. Although he expressed remorse at the trial, he acknowledged that he would have continued his violent behavior if he had not been arrested. He was sentenced to death in 1990.
In a recent interview, Pulley’s sister Lisette Monroe said that waiting for Nichols’ execution had been “37 years of hell”. She described her sister as “gentle, sweet and innocent” and said she hoped that after the execution she would be able to focus on happy memories of Puli rather than her murder.
Nichols’ attorneys unsuccessfully sought to have his sentence commuted to life in prison, citing the fact that he took responsibility for his crimes and pleaded guilty. His clemency petition states, “He will be the first person since Tennessee reinstated the death penalty in 1978 to be executed for a crime to which he has pleaded guilty.”
Nichols, 64, has seen the last two execution dates come and go. The state had previously planned to execute him in August 2020, but Nichols was granted a reprieve due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Nichols had chosen to die in the electric chair – an option allowed in Tennessee for inmates convicted of crimes before January 1999.
In 2020, three different drugs were used in the series in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, a process that attorneys for inmates claimed was fraught with problems. Their concerns appeared to have merit in 2022, when Governor Bill Lee postponed executions, including a second execution date for Nichols. An independent review of the state’s lethal injection process found that none of the drugs prepared for seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 were properly tested.
The Tennessee Department of Corrections released a new execution protocol last December that uses the single drug pentobarbital. Lawyers for several death row inmates have filed suit over the new rules, but a hearing in that case is not scheduled until April. Nicholas refused to choose the execution method this time, so his execution would be by lethal injection by default.
His attorney Stephen Ferrell said in an email that “The Tennessee Department of Corrections has not provided our client with sufficient information about Tennessee’s lethal execution protocols so that he can make an informed decision about how the state will end his life.”
Nichols’ lawyers on Monday won a court ruling granting access to the records of two previous executions using the new method, but the state has not yet released the records and has said it will appeal. During Tennessee’s last execution in August, Byron Black said he was “paining very badly” in his final moments. The state has provided no explanation as to what caused the pain.
Many states have had difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs as anti-death penalty activists have put pressure on drug companies and other suppliers. Amid shortages and legal challenges over failed executions, some states have adopted alternative methods of execution, including firing squad. South Carolina and nitrogen gas Alabama,
