Florida put two condemned men to death by lethal injection on July 28, carrying out the state's first double execution in more than sixty years and the first same-day pair of executions anywhere in the United States in nearly a decade.
Former police officer James Aren Duckett, 68, died at 1:19 p.m. Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, followed at 6:13 p.m. Both men had spent decades on death row for separate murders committed in the late 1980s. The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the path hours earlier, denying stay requests and rejecting final appeals from both inmates, as USA Today reported.
Duckett's conviction traces back to 1987. While working as a police officer, he raped and drowned 11-year-old Teresa McAbee. A jury found him guilty, and a court sentenced him to death. He had been on death row for nearly four decades.
Occhicone was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents in 1986. At 80, he became the oldest inmate ever executed in Florida and the second oldest in modern U.S. history, the New York Post reported.
Before receiving the lethal injection, Occhicone addressed witnesses with a brief statement.
"I know it don't mean much, but I'm sorry. I never meant to do what I did."
Those were the last recorded words of the oldest man Florida has ever put to death.
Neither execution could have proceeded without the high court's intervention. Duckett's legal team had fought for years to obtain DNA testing on evidence from the 1987 case. The Florida Supreme Court had previously granted a stay to allow that testing. But the results came back inconclusive, neither clearing Duckett nor definitively connecting him to the crime, AP News reported. The state court then lifted the stay and set a new execution date.
Duckett's attorney, Mary Elizabeth Wells, had urged the courts to pump the brakes.
"The State's duty is to ensure that justice is done, and not rush to kill in a case with such serious doubts over guilt."
The Supreme Court disagreed, or at least declined to act. Both Duckett's and Occhicone's emergency petitions were denied without extended comment, leaving the execution schedule intact. The court's willingness to let both sentences stand on the same day drew immediate attention from legal observers on both sides of the capital punishment debate. In a recent Mississippi case, the justices showed they will intervene when constitutional violations taint a death sentence. Here, they found no such reason.
Governor Ron DeSantis has made no secret of his administration's approach to capital punishment. Florida has maintained one of the most active execution calendars in the country, and DeSantis has framed the pace as a matter of overdue accountability.
Fox News reported that DeSantis addressed the executions directly, telling reporters he expects his administration will set a record.
"I think we'll probably end up having done more than any administration in the history of the state of Florida."
He added a note of gravity, acknowledging the weight of the decisions while defending them as necessary for the families left behind.
"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."
DeSantis has previously pointed to the length of time many of these cases have lingered. "Some of these crimes were committed in the '80s," he said. "Justice delayed is justice denied." Both of the men executed on July 28 committed their crimes during the Reagan administration. Duckett spent 39 years on death row. Occhicone spent 40.
Same-day executions are extraordinarily uncommon. Florida last carried out two on one day in 1964. No state in the country had done it in nearly a decade before July 28. The logistical and legal hurdles are steep. Each execution requires its own full set of appeals, its own Supreme Court review, and its own death warrant signed by the governor.
That both warrants aligned on the same calendar date was partly a product of timing. Duckett's execution had been delayed by the DNA testing stay. Once the Florida Supreme Court lifted that stay and reset the date, it landed on the same day Occhicone's warrant was already scheduled. The state chose to proceed with both rather than reschedule either one.
The broader question of how aggressively states pursue capital punishment remains one of the sharpest divides in American law. The Supreme Court has repeatedly been asked to intervene in death penalty cases on constitutional grounds, sometimes granting relief and sometimes declining. Florida's double execution will likely intensify that debate.
Duckett's case carried a particular sting. He was a sworn officer, on duty the night Teresa McAbee disappeared. The 11-year-old had gone to a convenience store. Duckett, working patrol, was the last person seen with her. Her body was found in a nearby pond. She had been sexually assaulted and drowned.
His defense team maintained for decades that the evidence was circumstantial and that newer forensic methods could exonerate him. The DNA testing the Florida Supreme Court authorized was supposed to resolve the question. It did not. The results were inconclusive, and the courts determined there was no basis to delay the sentence further.
Investigators will need to determine whether any additional forensic review of the evidence is warranted, though with Duckett now dead, any such effort would serve only historical and legal-precedent purposes. Cases involving decades-long death row stays continue to raise questions about the speed and finality of capital justice in America.
Occhicone's case drew less public attention over the years but carried its own grim weight. He murdered the parents of his ex-girlfriend in 1986. The details of the killings were not in dispute. His appeals focused on procedural and constitutional arguments, all of which were ultimately rejected.
At 80, his age alone made the execution notable. Florida had never put anyone that old to death. Only one older inmate has been executed anywhere in the modern United States. His final words suggested a man who had accepted what was coming, though whether his apology carried meaning for the victims' family is something only they can answer.
The execution of elderly inmates raises its own set of legal and ethical questions, separate from the guilt-or-innocence debate. Courts have generally held that age alone does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment, and Florida's willingness to proceed with Occhicone's execution underscores that position. Ongoing legal battles over execution methods in other states show that the procedural fights around capital punishment are far from settled.
Authorities have not publicly indicated whether additional same-day executions are planned in Florida. The state has several more inmates with active death warrants, and DeSantis has signaled no intention of slowing down.
For the families of Teresa McAbee and of Occhicone's victims, July 28 marked the end of a wait that stretched across generations. Whether the legal system moved too slowly or too fast depends on where you stand. What is not in dispute is that two men who committed brutal crimes in the 1980s are now dead, and the state that convicted them carried out both sentences before sundown on a single Monday.
When the law promises a consequence and then takes forty years to deliver it, the question is not whether justice was done. The question is whether anyone still trusts the system to do it at all.
