Tennessee Criminal Justice

Tennessee executed Harold Wayne Nichols, 64, by lethal injection in Nashville on Thursday for the 1988 rape and murder of 20-year-old Chattanooga State student Karen Pulley, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stay the execution. The state used its new single‑drug pentobarbital protocol, which is being challenged in court; Nichols’ lawyers recently won a ruling for records from two prior executions under the new method, which the state says it will appeal.