Florida executed two convicted murderers by lethal injection on the same day after the U.S. Supreme Court denied both men's last-ditch requests for stays, marking the state's first double execution in more than sixty years.
James Duckett, 68, a former police officer who raped and murdered an 11-year-old girl in 1987, was pronounced dead at 1:19 p.m. Tuesday. Roughly five hours later, Dominick Occhicone, 80, who murdered his ex-girlfriend's parents in 1986, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. local time. Both men died by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke, Fox News reported.
The twin executions made Florida the first state to put two inmates to death on the same day since Arkansas did so in April 2017. Before Tuesday, Florida itself had not carried out a double execution since 1964. Only two such events have occurred anywhere in the country this century.
Duckett had been scheduled to die at noon, but the Florida Department of Corrections delayed the procedure while the Supreme Court considered his emergency stay request. The justices denied the stay, and the execution moved forward. He was pronounced dead roughly an hour and nineteen minutes past the original time.
Duckett spent decades on death row after his conviction for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl. He was a police officer at the time of the crime, a fact that made the case particularly notorious in Florida. His age at death, 68, meant he had lived more than half his life awaiting the sentence the state carried out Tuesday.
The Supreme Court has remained active this term on a range of high-profile matters, from reinstating the Etan Patz murder conviction to weighing deportation disputes and redistricting fights. Tuesday's denial of both stay requests fit a pattern of the current Court declining to intervene in state-level capital punishment proceedings when lower courts have already exhausted the appeals process.
At 80 years old, Occhicone became the oldest inmate ever executed in the state of Florida and, as the New York Post reported, the second oldest in the modern history of U.S. capital punishment. His lawyers had argued that executing a man of his age and physical condition amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment" and was therefore unconstitutional. The Supreme Court disagreed.
Before his death, Occhicone delivered a brief final statement.
"I know it don't mean much, but I'm sorry. I never meant to do what I did."
Whatever remorse Occhicone expressed in his final moments, his crime was not ambiguous. He was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend's parents, a double homicide that sent him to death row nearly four decades ago. The families of his victims waited longer than most Americans live for the state to carry out the sentence a jury imposed.
The constitutional argument his attorneys raised, that advanced age should shield a condemned man from execution, found no traction with the justices. Courts have consistently held that age alone does not render a lawful sentence unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court's refusal to grant Occhicone's stay reinforced that precedent without written opinion.
Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed the executions the same day, speaking at the Florida Sheriffs Association Summer Conference. He framed the pace of Florida's death penalty enforcement as a matter of justice for victims and their families.
"I think we'll probably end up having done more than any administration in the history of the state of Florida."
DeSantis acknowledged the gravity of the issue while defending his record. Other states have slowed or halted executions in recent years under pressure from anti-death-penalty advocacy groups and progressive governors who imposed moratoriums. Florida has moved in the opposite direction, and DeSantis made clear he views that as a feature, not a flaw.
"I'm not, like, taking pride in that because it's a weighty thing, but to me, as we move through those and bring justice, that makes a big difference for a lot of people out there who suffered really, really serious tragedies."
The numbers back up DeSantis's claim. A Fox News Digital review of Florida Department of Corrections data found that the state has executed more inmates so far this year than any other state, more than double the next closest, Texas, which has carried out four executions in the same period. Florida has now carried out nearly half of all state executions nationwide since the beginning of 2025, the Fox News report noted.
That pace stands in sharp contrast to states where governors have used executive authority to halt death sentences entirely. California, for instance, has maintained a moratorium on executions for years. Florida's willingness to schedule, and carry out, two executions in a single day sends an unmistakable signal about where the state stands.
Both men had been on death row for roughly four decades. Duckett's crime dates to 1987, Occhicone's to 1986. In the years between sentencing and execution, both men exhausted round after round of state and federal appeals. The legal system gave each man every procedural avenue the law provides. Tuesday, those avenues ran out.
The length of time between conviction and execution is a persistent source of frustration for victims' families and law-enforcement officials who argue that justice delayed is justice diminished. A child murdered in 1987 would be approaching 50 today. The parents Occhicone killed have been gone for nearly forty years. For the families left behind, Tuesday's executions closed a chapter that most Americans would struggle to imagine living through.
The Supreme Court's role in capital cases continues to draw attention from legal observers and lawmakers alike. The current Court has shown a general reluctance to second-guess state-level death penalty proceedings where procedural requirements have been met, a posture that has enabled states like Florida to move forward on long-delayed sentences. That stands in contrast to the approach favored by some lower federal courts, which have at times drawn sharp pushback from the justices for overstepping their review authority.
Florida's political leadership has aligned around a law-and-order posture that extends well beyond capital punishment. The state's courts have moved aggressively on redistricting and other politically charged matters, with the Florida Supreme Court recently greenlighting a new GOP-drawn congressional map in a 6-1 ruling. DeSantis has positioned himself as a governor willing to use every tool the law provides, and Tuesday's double execution fits that pattern.
The legal arguments Occhicone's attorneys raised about age and cruel punishment will likely surface again as death row populations age nationwide. But the Supreme Court's refusal to grant a stay suggests that, for now, age alone will not be enough to overturn a lawfully imposed death sentence. Courts at every level have shown little appetite for expanding constitutional protections beyond what the text and precedent support.
For the families of an 11-year-old girl and two murdered parents, Tuesday was not about legal theory or execution records. It was about a promise the state made decades ago, and finally kept.