Whether the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibits a state from applying disparate execution protocols to death row prisoners without a rational basis

No question identified. : To the Honorable Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Sixth Circuit: Harold Wayne Nichols is scheduled to be executed on December 11, 2025, at 10 a.m. Central. Nichols respectfully requests a stay of his execution pending this Court’s disposition of his petition for a writ of certiorari and pending the resolution of his litigation regarding the State of Tennessee’s violation of his Equal Protection rights and the constitutionality of the State’s lethal injection protocol. Plaintiff-Appellant Harold Wayne Nichols moves this Court for a stay of execution pursuant to Rule 23 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Nichols offers the following Brief of Law in Support. JURISDICTION The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling dismissing the case on procedural grounds on December 5, 2025. (Doc. 18-1). Nichols contemporaneously seeks certiorari on the denial of his appeal. As such, this Court has jurisdiction to entertain Nichols’ petition for certiorari and application for stay of execution under 28 U.S.C. § 1254. BACKGROUND On January 8, 2025, the Tennessee Department of Correction released a redacted version of its new method of execution protocol. On March 3, 2025, the Tennessee Supreme Court set a December 11, 2025 execution date for Nichols. On April 18, 2025, Nichols filed a Complaint in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, raising several constitutional challenges to the new protocol pursuant to 42 U.S.C § 1983. Compl. (R. 1; PageID# 1). Specifically, he alleged that the (hereafter “Defendants”) denied him his rights to Due Process and Equal Protection under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by refusing to extend to him the same agreement it extended to other death row prisoners: to not oppose a stay of execution while a method of execution claim was litigated. Compl. (R. 1; PageID# 29-32). He also raised facial and asapplied challenges to Tennessee’s new protocol. Compl. (R. 1; PageID# 34-39). His Complaint sought injunctive relief to allow him the opportunity to challenge Tennessee’s new protocol. Compl. (R. 1, PageID# 31 (“this Court should order the Defendants to enter into an agreement with Plaintiff ‘not to oppose a motion for stay of execution .”)); Compl. (R. 1, Pagel D# 57 (“issue a permanent injunction against the use of the revised lethal injection protocol”)). Almost two months later, Defendants moved to dismiss Nichols’ Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Mot. Dismiss (R. 27; PageID# 296-98). On November 6, 2025, Nichols filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Mot. PI (R. 47; PageID# 494-97). On November 26, 2025, the District Court granted Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Order (R. 56; PageID# 1608). The District Court did not rule on the preliminary injunction motion. On December 1, 2025, Nichols filed a notice of appeal. Notice (R. 58; PageID# 1611). On December 5, 2025, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling dismissing the case on procedural grounds. I. Factual Background A. Governor Lee Halts Executions because TDOC was not following its Method of Execution Protocol. On the afternoon of April 21, 2022, less than one hour before the execution of Oscar Franklin Smith by lethal injection, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee issued a temporary reprieve due to “an oversight in preparation.” Compl. Exh. 1 and 2 (Gov. Lee Statement on Temporary Reprieve, R. 1-1, 1-2; PageID# 60, 62). It was later discovered that the drugs prepared for Oscar Smith’s execution had not been tested for endotoxins, an oversight of the three-drug protocol’s requirement to conduct testing of the lethal injection chemicals. Reply Exh. 8 (R. 54-8; PageID# 1386). B. The same sort of TDOC failures that led to the