The man known as the "red-headed stranger" at the time he was convicted of the 1988 murder of 21-year-old Karen Pulley was back in a Hamilton County Criminal Court on Monday.
Harold Wayne Nichols appeared before Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood for a resentencing.
Nichols, who was also convicted in a string of rapes of other women, had filed a post-conviction. He lost the appeal, but it was ruled that some of his sentences should be modified because he should have been sentenced under a later sentencing statute.
Prosecutor Rodney Strong said Nichols "still will either be executed or he will die in a Tennessee prison."
He said Nichols remains on death row and he has sentences totaling 225 years.
He at one time had sentences totaling over 600 years.