FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The state of Florida is set to execute two death row inmates on the same day for the first time in more than 60 years, now that a stay has been lifted for a former police officer who had been scheduled to die earlier this year for killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987.
James Aren Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die at noon on July 28 at Florida State Prison near Starke, according to a death warrant signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Duckett was convicted of raping and drowning the girl while working as a police officer in a small central Florida city.
The execution for Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, was previously scheduled for 6 p.m. that same day. He was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986.
First executions on same day in more than 60 years
This is the first time Florida plans to execute two inmates on the same day since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty nationwide in 1976 after temporarily halting executions in 1972. According to , Emmett C. Blake and Sie Dawson were executed for murder on May 12, 1964. The state records show multiple executions on a single day were more common in the past.
Duckett and Occhicone would become the 11th and 12th inmates to be executed in Florida this year if their deaths go as scheduled. Appeals in both cases will eventually go to the U.S. Supreme Court before any executions are performed.
According to court documents, Duckett was the only police officer on duty in Mascotte, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Orlando, the night of May 11, 1987. Witnesses reported seeing Teresa McAbee getting into Duckett’s patrol car outside a convenience store that evening, and her mother reported her missing several hours later. Her body was found the next morning in a nearby lake. DNA from fluids and hair collected from the girl’s body were probable matches to Duckett, and fingerprints matching Duckett and the girl were recovered from his patrol car, investigators said.
In Occhicone’s case, authorities said he showed up the morning of June 10, 1986, at a home in Holiday, just north of Clearwater, where his former girlfriend was living with her parents and her two children. After the woman refused to speak with Occhicone, he left for about an hour and returned with a handgun, investigators said. Occhicone cut the exterior phone lines and then fatally shot Raymond and Martha Artzner as Occhicone’s former girlfriend fled with her daughter. Occhicone didn’t deny the shootings, but his attorneys argued during trial that the murders weren’t premeditated.
DeSantis oversaw , more in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous high was set in 2014.
A short reprieve for Duckett ends
DeSantis previously signed a death warrant for Duckett in February, scheduling his execution for March 31. But the Florida Supreme Court issued a stay just days before the execution to allow for DNA testing of old evidence that couldn't be performed because of technological limitations at the time of the original trial. The results came back inconclusive, meaning that they did not exonerate Duckett or definitively connect him to the crime. Judges have allowed the jury verdict to stand, and Duckett's stay was lifted earlier this month.
Duckett's attorney, Mary Elizabeth Wells, released a statement calling the rescheduled execution shameful and claiming the state's handling of the DNA evidence is the reason for the inconclusive results.
“Mr. Duckett has consistently maintained his innocence,” the statement said. “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. We are committed to seeking every avenue of relief for Mr. Duckett ahead of his scheduled July 28 execution so that the State of Florida does not execute an innocent man.”
The governor's office declined to comment on Duckett's case or these particular executions, but DeSantis has previously said that his goal is to bring justice to victims’ families who have waited decades for death sentences to be carried out.
“Some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s,” the governor said during a November 2025 news conference. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly. If I honestly thought someone was innocent, I would not pull the trigger.”
Occhione would be oldest to be executed in Florida
Occhicone would also become the to be executed. Occhicone has several age-related ailments, including kidney and prostate problems, according to his attorneys. He needs help getting in and out of the shower, they noted.
On June 25, Florida executed 74-year-old for the killing of his estranged wife. He was the oldest inmate executed in Florida until Tuesday, when — just a week older than Spencer — was put to death for killing a woman in the first hours of 1982 after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.
Occhicone also would become the second oldest prisoner known to be put to death in modern U.S. history after Moody was executed in Alabama in 2018 for killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney during a wave of mail bombs in the South.
Florida executions are conducted via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
