Florida Schedules Two Lethal Injections on July 28

Florida will carry out lethal injections for two inmates on July 28, marking the first time in nearly a decade that a state has scheduled back-to-back executions. James Aren Duckett, 68, is set to be executed at noon at Florida State Prison near Starke, followed about six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Anthony Occhicone. Duckett was convicted of raping and drowning an 11-year-old girl in 1987 while serving as a police officer; Occhicone was convicted of the 1986 murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents. Both men remain on appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Associated Press

Governor Ron DeSantis has accelerated the state’s use of the death penalty. In 2025 the administration recorded 19 executions, the highest annual total for any Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was eight executions in 2014. If the July 28 executions proceed, the total for DeSantis’s final two years in office would rise to 31, compared with nine executions during his first six years. An additional execution is scheduled for August.

Associated Press

The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals for both Duckett and Occhicone last week. The court removed a stay on Duckett’s case on July 8, after which DeSantis signed a new death warrant that added Duckett to Occhicone’s execution date—an arrangement not used in Florida for more than 60 years. A Florida prison official said the department is confident in its readiness to carry out both executions. DeSantis has previously stated that his goal is to bring justice to victims’ families and that he would not proceed if he believed an inmate were innocent.

Associated Press

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, led by executive director Grace Hanna, urged DeSantis to halt the July 28 executions, describing the schedule as an “unprecedented escalation” of the state’s use of capital punishment. The group argues that the two cases, though different, illustrate a troubling expansion of the death penalty despite evidence that many Floridians oppose it.

Associated Press

Duckett and Occhicone would become Florida’s 11th and 12th inmates executed this year. Occhicone would be the oldest prisoner ever executed in Florida and the second-oldest in modern U.S. history, after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr., who was executed in Alabama in 2018. The last time Florida carried out multiple executions on the same day was May 12, 1964. Prior multi-execution days in the United States occurred in Arkansas in 2017 and Texas in 2000. All Florida executions are performed by a three-drug lethal injection protocol consisting of a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart.

Associated Press