We prove that in the nonextreme KerrNewman black hole geometry, the Dirac equation has no normalizable, timeperiodic solutions. A key tool is Chandrasekhar's separation of the Dirac equation in this geometry. A similar nonexistence theorem is established in a more general class of stationary, axisymmetric metrics in which the Dirac equation is known to be separable. These results indicate that, in contrast to the classical situation of massive particle orbits, a quantum mechanical Dirac particle must either disappear into the black hole or escape to infinity. 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.