Florida is set to execute two death row inmates on the same day, making it the first state to do so in over a decade while breaking its own age record for oldest prisoner executed twice in six hours.
Historic Double Execution Planned
James Duckett, 68, faces lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke on Tuesday. Six hours later, Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, will become the oldest prisoner executed in Florida history and the second oldest in the nation. The unprecedented same-day double execution marks a controversial milestone in the state’s aggressive pursuit of capital punishment under current leadership.
Duckett, a former police officer, has spent nearly four decades on death row for the 1987 murder of an 11-year-old girl while on duty. He maintains his innocence despite his conviction. Occhicone received his death sentence for murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents and has been awaiting execution for an equal length of time.
Courts Deny All Emergency Appeals
Duckett received a stay of execution in March to allow DNA testing of evidence that could not be examined during his original trial due to technological limitations. Those results came back inconclusive, and his conviction remained intact. His attorneys requested another stay, arguing the state’s handling of evidence compromised the DNA results. Courts denied the request.
Occhicone’s legal team argued his age-related health conditions could make execution especially painful, constituting cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Constitution. That appeal was also rejected. Both inmates filed a joint emergency motion claiming simultaneous executions increase the risk of botched procedures. Courts denied that motion as well, though an emergency appeal remains pending before the United States Supreme Court.
Record-Breaking Execution Pace
These executions will make Duckett and Occhicone the 11th and 12th inmates put to death in Florida this year. The state executed 19 people in 2025, setting a record since the death penalty was reinstated nationwide in 1976. Florida’s current administration has dramatically accelerated the pace of capital punishment, raising concerns among legal advocates about due process and the treatment of elderly inmates with serious health complications facing execution.
They should have been executed rite away. This has cost tax payer money for murderers. Did their victims get 40 + more years to just play in jail? NO. We are to lenient on murders they deserve the harshest punishment and especially murderers of children and elderly.
We are all children of God and as such only He has the right and privilege of life and death.
An eye for an eye. Capital punishment is a form that needs to stay. Executions should not take so long before being carried out. Lethal injection is not cruel and painful. It is life being put to sleep for surgery except you do not wake up. Not a bad way to go.