Tennessee Execution Set to Proceed Despite Mounting Concerns Over State’s Lethal Injection Protocol

Harold Nichols is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion on December 11, 2025, despite ques­tions from doc­tors and lawyers about whether Tennessee’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col caus­es unnec­es­sary pain and suf­fer­ing. Mr. Nichols was sen­tenced to death for the 1988 rape and mur­der of Karen Pooley, a Chattanooga State University stu­dent, and his case involves a broad­er legal bat­tle over the secre­cy of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol.

At the cen­ter of the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col is a law­suit in Knox County Chancery Court, where attor­neys for Mr. Nichols are fight­ing to obtain basic infor­ma­tion about the state’s lethal injec­tion drugs, which they argue has been wrong­ful­ly with­held under Tennessee’s exe­cu­tion secre­cy statute. This statute pro­tects the iden­ti­ties of indi­vid­u­als and enti­ties involved in exe­cu­tions, includ­ing prison staff, con­trac­tors, and drug sup­pli­ers. Counsel for Mr. Nichols argues the law does not require the com­plete with­hold­ing of infor­ma­tion relat­ed to the pro­to­col. But the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) main­tains that pro­vid­ing even seem­ing­ly innocu­ous details could lead to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the sup­pli­er. In court fil­ings, state offi­cials argued, with­out evi­dence, that infor­ma­tion like drug pack­ag­ing could be traced back to spe­cif­ic sup­pli­ers through inter­net research, and that expo­sure would cause sup­pli­ers to with­draw from agree­ments with the department.

Mr. Nichols declined to choose between exe­cu­tion by the elec­tric chair or lethal injec­tion ahead of his exe­cu­tion date, so the state will exe­cute him by its default method of lethal injec­tion using pen­to­bar­bi­tal. His lawyers have argued that Mr. Nichols could not make an informed deci­sion about a method of exe­cu­tion with­out know­ing crit­i­cal details about how the drug would be admin­is­tered. His coun­sel argue that crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion like expi­ra­tion dates and test­ing results have noth­ing to do with sup­pli­er iden­ti­ties. They point to the expi­ra­tion date because pen­to­bar­bi­tal los­es poten­cy and its effec­tive­ness will weak­en if not stored prop­er­ly, fac­tors that could lead to a slow­er, more painful death. Tennessee’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col requires qual­i­ty and poten­cy test­ing before exe­cu­tions, but there has not been any pub­lic con­fir­ma­tion that such test­ing has tak­en place ahead of the exe­cu­tions car­ried out in 2025.

Attorneys from the Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee request­ed records includ­ing expi­ra­tion dates for the pen­to­bar­bi­tal sup­ply, qual­i­ty test­ing results, stor­age con­di­tions, and pack­ag­ing infor­ma­tion. The Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) denied all of their requests, cit­ing the state’s secre­cy statute. Chancellor John Weaver ordered TDOC to hand over the dis­put­ed doc­u­ments to him by December 3 for pri­vate review to deter­mine whether the agency prop­er­ly applied the secre­cy statute. There is no sched­uled time­line by which Chancellor Weaver is required to review the doc­u­ments sup­plied by the state.

“Given the recent rev­e­la­tions in the exe­cu­tion of Byron Black — that he was con­scious and suf­fered pain as the state inject­ed him with pen­to­bar­bi­tal and that his heart showed activ­i­ty after he was pro­nounced dead — trans­paren­cy is more impor­tant now than ever,” said Mr. Nichols’ attor­ney Luke Ihnen. ​“The state owes it to all Tennesseans to ensure that its process for car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions is trans­par­ent and com­plies with the Constitution.”

The fight over records reflects deep­er exist­ing con­cerns about Tennessee’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. The state spent three years under an exe­cu­tion mora­to­ri­um because Governor Bill Lee ordered a pause after his dis­cov­ery in 2022 that TDOC had failed to prop­er­ly test its lethal injec­tion drug sup­ply. These con­cerns inten­si­fied fol­low­ing the August 5, 2025, exe­cu­tion of Byron Black. Media wit­ness­es report­ed that Mr. Black showed vis­i­ble signs of dis­tress dur­ing his exe­cu­tion, gasp­ing for air, lift­ing his head repeat­ed­ly, and telling his spir­i­tu­al advi­sor, ​“It hurts so bad.” Mr. Black’s autop­sy revealed he devel­oped ​“pul­monary con­ges­tion and ede­ma,” an abnor­mal buildup of flu­id in the lungs that caus­es a drowning sensation.

A group of doc­tors and oth­er med­ical pro­fes­sion­als have sent a let­ter to Gov. Lee urg­ing him to pause all exe­cu­tions in the state until the pen­to­bar­bi­tal pro­to­col can be reviewed by a court. ​“From our clin­i­cal expe­ri­ence, pen­to­bar­bi­tal is unpre­dictable when used in iso­la­tion and can cause great dis­tress and a pro­longed and painful death,” their let­ter reads. ​“Even when admin­is­tered in very high dosages, pen­to­bar­bi­tal can­not be relied upon to work as an anes­thet­ic. This means that the indi­vid­ual remains sen­sate and expe­ri­ences great dis­tress as he or she slow­ly suf­fo­cates.” The med­ical pro­fes­sion­als not­ed they can­not par­tic­i­pate in exe­cu­tions because doing so would vio­late their Hippocratic Oath, and con­se­quen­tial­ly, cor­rec­tion­al staff must per­form med­ical pro­ce­dures with­out prop­er med­ical train­ing or exper­tise. ​“Regardless of our feel­ings about the indi­vid­ual who is being exe­cut­ed, all of us should care deeply about the psy­cho­log­i­cal impact on Tennessee’s cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers who have to live with what­ev­er hap­pens in that exe­cu­tion cham­ber.” The sig­na­to­ries empha­sized they were not tak­ing a posi­tion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment but rais­ing con­cerns about the spe­cif­ic pro­to­col in question.

While deny­ing relief for Mr. Nichols in a sep­a­rate chal­lenge look­ing to stay his exe­cu­tion over con­cerns with the state’s pro­to­col, fed­er­al U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson acknowl­edged a list of con­cerns with how Tennessee has gone about acquir­ing lethal injec­tion drugs and writ­ing its pro­to­col, but ulti­mate­ly sided with the state and dis­missed the law­suit because of statute of lim­i­ta­tions. Counsel for Mr. Nichols has appealed the District Court’s decision.