Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, putting to death an 80-year-old man who was the second oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern US history.
Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of the killing of a young girl.
Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, has made the state’s death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term, saying too many families have waited too long to see justice.
The lethal injections just hours apart were the first nearly back-to-back executions since Arkansas put two men to death three hours apart in 2017.
DeSantis, who has the authority under Florida law to set execution dates, decided earlier this month to carry out both executions on the same day.
Nationwide, the use of the death penalty had been declining for two decades, but that number has ticked up behind the increased pace in Florida. Since 2025 began, Florida has carried out nearly half the state executions across the country.
Dominick Anthony Occhicone, the octogenarian, was pronounced dead at 6.13pm at Florida state prison near Starke following a three-drug injection. His execution came nearly five hours after the ex-police officer, James Aren Duckett, 68, received a lethal dose in the same death chamber.
The curtain to the chamber went up for the last time on Tuesday at Occhicone’s 6pm scheduled execution hour. Occhicone was strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm and a spiritual adviser near his feet.
Asked if he wished to make a statement, Occhicone said he thanked all of his Christian brothers for visiting him over the years. He also apologized to the family of the victims and to his own family for what he had put them through.
“I know it don’t mean much, but I’m sorry,” Occhicone said. “I never meant to do what I did.”
The injection began at 6.02pm followed by several minutes of deep breathing. When Occhicone’s breathing slowed, a warden shook him and yelled his name but there was no response.
Occhicone, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986, is the oldest prisoner executed in Florida’s history since modern record-keeping began a century ago.
An older inmate, 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr, received a lethal injection in Alabama in 2018 for a wave of mail bombs in 1989 that killed a federal judge and wounded a Black civil rights attorney.
Duckett was pronounced dead early on Tuesday afternoon following a three-drug injection. Duckett was convicted of raping and drowning 11-year-old Teresa McAbee while he was working as a police officer in central Florida in 1987.
Duckett declined to make a final statement, responding, “No sir” when asked. About four minutes after the execution began, the prison’s warden shook Duckett and shouted his name, but there was no response.
Afterward, the girl’s family members said they had suffered for decades.
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“I waited nearly 40 years to have him dead,” Dorthy Tula, the victim’s mother, said before breaking down. “This man took advantage of his badge,” said Tracy Mcfall-Buskirk, the girl’s cousin.
Until Tuesday, a total of 17 executions had been carried out in the US so far this year, with Florida carrying out more than all other states combined.
Both men saw last-ditch appeals to the US supreme court denied on Tuesday after the Florida supreme court declined to intervene last week.
Duckett’s attorneys had unsuccessfully claimed his innocence and argued against the state’s handling of DNA evidence.
Occhicone’s attorneys said several age-related ailments, including kidney and prostate problems, could make his execution especially painful, constituting cruel and unusual punishment.
DeSantis has not said why he scheduled two executions six hours apart. . All Florida executions are by injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the department of corrections.
DeSantis, who leaves office in January, oversaw a record 19 executions last year, more in a single year than any other Florida governor since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the US in 1976.
Florida now has executed 30 people since the beginning of 2025 while the rest of the US states combined have carried out 35 executions over the same time frame.
Another execution in Florida is set for August.
