Florida Executes 2 in a Day, Including 80-Year-Old Inmate

STARKE, Fla. — Florida carried out a rare “double execution” on Tuesday, putting two prisoners to death on the same day for the first time in the state in more than six decades — including an 80-year-old man who became the second-oldest inmate executed in modern U.S. history.

James Aren Duckett, 68, a former police officer, was pronounced dead at 1:19 p.m. at Florida State Prison for the 1987 rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee. Hours later, Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, was scheduled to become the oldest prisoner executed in Florida’s modern history for the 1986 murder of his ex-fiancée’s parents, according to AP News.

A Historic Day in Florida’s Death Chamber

The dual execution marks the first time Florida has executed two inmates on a single day since May 12, 1964. No state has carried out two executions in one day since Arkansas did so in April 2017.

The timing was not coincidental. After the Florida Supreme Court lifted a stay on Duckett’s execution on July 8, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new death warrant and added Duckett to Occhicone’s already-scheduled execution date — an unprecedented scheduling move in Florida in over 60 years.

If carried out as planned, Occhicone would become the second-oldest inmate ever put to death in the modern U.S. era, after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr., who was executed in Alabama in 2018.

The Two Cases

Duckett, a former Mascotte police officer, was convicted of raping and drowning 11-year-old Teresa McAbee while on duty in 1987. He declined to make a final statement, responding “no sir” when asked. About four minutes after the execution began, the warden shook him and shouted his name, but there was no response.

“I waited nearly 40 years to have him dead,” said Dorthy Tula, the victim’s mother.

Tracy Mcfall-Buskirk, the girl’s cousin, added: “This man took advantage of his badge.”

Duckett’s attorneys had maintained his innocence, arguing the state mishandled DNA evidence. His original execution date in March was stayed for DNA testing, but the results proved inconclusive — neither exonerating him nor definitively connecting him to the crime.

Occhicone was convicted of killing his ex-fiancée’s parents, Raymon Artzner, 66, and Martha Artzner, 62, in 1986 in Holiday, Florida. His attorneys argued that age-related ailments, including kidney and prostate problems, could make his execution especially painful, constituting cruel and unusual punishment.

DeSantis’s Unprecedented Execution Push

The dual execution is the latest milestone in an extraordinary acceleration of capital punishment under DeSantis, who leaves office in January 2027.

Florida executed a record 19 inmates in 2025 — more than any single year in the state since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The previous record was eight, set in 2014. So far in 2026, Florida has executed 11 inmates.

Since the beginning of 2025, Florida has carried out 30 executions while all other U.S. states combined have executed 35. This means Florida accounts for nearly half — 46% — of all executions nationwide during that period.

DeSantis oversaw just nine executions during his first six years in office but has presided over more than 30 in his final two years.

“Some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s,” DeSantis said last year. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly.”

Legal Battles and Appeals

Both men exhausted their final appeals on July 22, when the Florida Supreme Court denied their requests to intervene. Their attorneys had also petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court.

Grace Hanna, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, condemned the day’s events, calling July 28 “an unprecedented escalation of Florida’s use of the death penalty,” AP News reported.

“These are two profoundly different cases, but they point to the same troubling reality: Florida continues to expand the use of capital punishment, despite mounting evidence that it is not what Floridians want,” Hanna said.

A Florida prison official said Tuesday morning that the department was confident in its readiness to carry out both executions. DeSantis has not publicly explained why he scheduled two executions six hours apart, according to AP News.

What’s Next

Another execution is already scheduled for August 2026. With DeSantis term-limited and leaving office in five months, the question remains whether Florida’s accelerated execution pace will continue under the next administration — or whether Tuesday’s unprecedented double execution will mark the peak of a particularly aggressive chapter in the state’s use of capital punishment.