Despite the fact that Tennessee’s troubling, newly-adopted lethal injection protocol has not been reviewed by the courts to determine its constitutionality, the State of Tennessee executed Oscar Smith on May 22, 2025, after he spent 35 years on death row.
You can learn more about the problems with the new protocol here.
You can read a report about Mr. Smith’s execution here.
THE TORTUROUS EXECUTION OF BYRON BLACK
On August 5, Tennessee executed Byron Black with pentobarbital. As reported by every media witness present for his execution, Mr. Black was not rendered unconscious but gasped for air and lifted his head multiple times, stating, “It hurts so bad. I can’t do this.”
His autopsy revealed that he suffered from pulmonary edema during his execution and that even after he was declared dead by the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), Mr. Black experienced sustained cardiac activity for at least two minutes.
Given the secrecy of Tennessee’s new protocol, its reliance on pentobarbital, the State’s refusal to deactivate Mr. Black’s defibrillator, and the total lack of judicial review, this result was predictable.
On December 11, 2025, Tennessee plans to execute Harold Wayne Nichols unless Governor Lee or the courts intervene.
Under Tennessee law, Mr. Nichols must have selected his method of execution no later than November 11. To better inform his ability to make this decision, his attorneys have requested information from the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) for months with no success. Given the grave problems that occurred during Mr. Black’s execution, this information is more critical than ever.
Mr. Nichols’ attorneys have now filed suit in Knox County Chancery Court against the TDOC for violating the Tennessee Public Records Act by repeatedly refusing to release records related to the State’s execution process and recent executions.
“Tennesseans deserve to know that the Tennessee Department of Correction is following its own rules and that executions are being carried out in a manner that is not cruel and torturous,” said Mr. Nichols’ attorney Luke Ihnen. “Transparency is not optional, it’s the law.”
A coalition of news organizations has also filed suit against Tennessee prison officials over the media’s lack of access to the execution process. The coalition argues that the State’s execution protocol violates “the public and press’s statutory and constitutional rights to witness the entirety of executions conducted by the Tennessee Department of Correction, from the time the condemned enters the execution chamber until after the condemned is declared dead.”The lawsuit says the First Amendment of the U.S. and Tennessee Constitutions guarantee the public’s right to witness the entirety of executions and that Tennessee law details the categories of witnesses entitled to be present at executions, including seven members of the media.
TAKE ACTION NOW: Send this updated letter to Governor Lee, urging him again to pause all executions until the court has had the opportunity to fully review this protocol.
What happened to Byron Black cannot be allowed to happen again.
HAROLD “WAYNE” NICHOLS’ REQUESTS CLEMENCY FROM GOVERNOR LEE
Harold “Wayne” Nichols’ legal team filed a clemency petition with Governor Lee, asking that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP). Currently, he is scheduled for execution on December 11, 2025.
TAKE ACTION NOW: Send a letter to Governor Lee urging him to grant clemency to Mr. Nichols.
Background:
Following a childhood marred by physical and sexual abuse, Mr. Nichols was sentenced to death in 1990 for the rape and unpremeditated murder of Karen Pulley. He took responsibility for his actions, expressed deep remorse, and pleaded guilty to his crimes–knowing that he could receive a death sentence without any promise of leniency. He also took responsibility for a series of rapes that occurred after Ms. Pulley’s death.
During his sentencing hearing, Mr. Nichols expressed remorse and apologized to Karen Pulley’s family. Immediately after sentencing, Ann Pulley, the victim’s mother, asked to meet with him. She offered him forgiveness and challenged him to earn it by changing his life. Later, she visited him in jail and presented him with a Bible, marked with her daughter’s favorite verses. That Bible remains one of his most treasured possessions.
At the time of his trial in 1990, LWOP was not a sentencing option in Tennessee. Multiple jurors believed that a death sentence was necessary to keep Mr. Nichols in prison, but that based on Tennessee’s history, he would never be executed. These jurors now oppose his execution and favor commutation.
Commuting his sentence would also be consistent with an agreement reached in 2018, when Hamilton County district attorneys agreed to resentence him to what was effectively LWOP. The judge unexpectedly reversed course at the last minute, refusing to accept the agreement.
For the past three decades, Mr. Nichols has spent every day of his incarceration living into the love and forgiveness that he has experienced through his Christian faith and through Ann Pulley. He is a man of deep faith, a role model, and mentor to others on death row. Executing him now accomplishes nothing.
Tennessee announces four new executions dates for 2026:
Tony Carruthers for May 21, 2026
Darrell Hines for August 13, 2026
Christa Pike for September 30, 2026
Gary Sutton for December 3, 2026
Read more about the execution dates and cases of three men and one woman here.
OTHER TENNESSEE CASES
CHRISTA PIKE
Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, has asked the courts to review her case. If executed, she would be the only individual in Tennessee in the modern era to be executed for actions taken when she was 18 and the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
TAKE ACTION: Sign and share the petition asking Governor Lee to commute Christa’s sentence to life.
Learn more about Christa’s case at https://www.mercyforchrista.org/
GARY SUTTON
Gary Sutton awaits execution for the murder of his close friend, Tommy Griffin. Gary has always fiercely maintained his innocence.
Gary’s case is riddled with errors. There is no direct evidence of his guilt. The only scientific evidence linking Gary to the case was offered by a now disgraced state medical examiner who lied on the stand and was stripped of his medical license. Moreover, there are other credible suspects who had motive and opportunity to commit Tommy’s murder.
With the death penalty in Tennessee reserved for only the most certain and heinous of circumstances, the State should not put to death a man whose conviction is flawed in so many ways and where so many questions still remain 30 years later. Gary should not be put to death.
TAKE ACTION: Sign and share the petition asking Governor Lee to commute Gary’s sentence to life.
Learn more about Gary’s case at https://www.justiceforgarywaynesutton.com/
Tennessee Executed Byron Black, a Man with Intellectual Disability:
For decades, the courts have ruled that executing an individual with an intellectual disability (ID) is in violation of the United States Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution.
In 2021, the Tennessee General Assembly recognized that Tennessee’s standards for determining ID were inaccurate and did not align with the modern clinical understanding of ID. The legislature then overwhelmingly voted to ensure that Tennessee was compliant with the current medical standards required by the courts to protect those with intellectual disability from execution.
Byron Black was tested under the state’s current standards for intellectual disability. The state’s own medical experts agree that Mr. Black demonstrated all three of the criteria: sub-average intellectual functioning, adaptive deficits, and onset in the developmental period. Based on this new information, the Davidson County District Attorney agreed that Mr. Black is a person with intellectual disability and should not face execution.
But because Mr. Black’s attorneys were diligent in presenting his ID to the courts back in 2004, shortly after the Atkins decision, under Tennessee’s previously inaccurate standard, a judge ruled in 2022 that Mr. Black had already had his one opportunity for a hearing back in 2004. Nothing about Mr. Black’s ID has changed; only the legal understanding of his condition based on sound science. If Mr. Black was on trial today, he would not be eligible for the death penalty. If his lawyers had not sought a hearing for him in 2004, the court would consider the evidence of his ID–including the State’s stipulation–under prevailing standards. Timing should not dictate if this man lives or dies.
Governors were given the power to commute sentences for just such a case as this, but that power was not executed in this case and Byron Black, a man with intellectual disability, was executed.