Florida Plans Two Executions on the Same Day for the First Time in Over 60 Years

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has recently signed an unprecedented execution order that schedules two death row inmates for lethal injection on the same day, July 28, a move not seen since 1964.

James Aren Duckett, 68, a former police officer convicted of sexually assaulting and drowning an 11-year-old girl in 1987, is set to be executed at noon at Florida State Prison, near Starke.

Six hours later, at 6 p.m., Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, who was convicted of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend's parents in 1986, is scheduled to face execution.

This marks the first time Florida intends to carry out two executions in a single day since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Historical Context of Dual Executions

According to state correctional records, the last double execution occurred on May 12, 1964, when Emmett C. Blake and Sie Dawson were executed.

Legal Proceedings and Appeals

Duckett's case reached this point after a delay. DeSantis had initially signed an order for his execution on March 31, but the Florida Supreme Court postponed it days prior to allow for new DNA testing on crime evidence that couldn't be analyzed with the technology available during the original trial.

The results, revealed in July, were inconclusive: they neither exonerated Duckett nor definitively linked him to the crime. The court lifted the suspension on July 9, paving the way for the new order.

Duckett's attorney, Mary Elizabeth Wells, criticized the rescheduled execution as shameful, attributing the ambiguous DNA results to the state's mishandling of evidence.

"Mr. Duckett has consistently maintained his innocence. It is the state's duty to ensure justice is served, not to hastily execute in a case with such significant doubts about guilt," she stated in a release.

Details of the Crimes

Court documents reveal that Duckett was the only officer on duty in Mascotte, about 40 miles west of Orlando, on the night of May 11, 1987. Witnesses saw Teresa McAbee get into the officer's patrol car outside a convenience store; her body was discovered the next day in a nearby lake.

Investigators concluded that DNA found on the girl's body likely matched Duckett's, and both their fingerprints were found in the vehicle.

Occhicone, meanwhile, is poised to become the oldest inmate executed in Florida and the second oldest in modern U.S. history, following Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who was executed in Alabama in 2018 at 83.

His lawyers argue that executing a man with kidney, prostate, and heart diseases, who also requires help to shower, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

A judge denied a stay of execution, ruling that age does not exempt one from the death penalty.

Florida's Execution Record

If both executions proceed, Duckett and Occhicone will become the 11th and 12th inmates executed in Florida in 2026, a year that has already seen ten executions by July 14.

This current pace is part of an unprecedented policy: DeSantis set a record with 19 executions in 2025, far surpassing the previous high of eight in 2014.

The governor has defended his stance with a statement from November 2025: "Some of these crimes were committed in the '80s. Delayed justice is justice denied. If I truly believed someone was innocent, I would not authorize the order."

Appeals for both convicts must pass through the U.S. Supreme Court before the executions can proceed.