Prateek Tanmay
2 min readJul 29, 2026 02:15 PM IST
Florida on Tuesday became the first US state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions on the same day, executing an 80-year-old death row inmate hours after putting a former police officer to death. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis authorised both executions, making Florida’s death chamber the busiest in the country as he approaches the end of his final term, Associated Press (AP) reported.
The first execution took place around after 1 pm., when former police officer James Aren Duckett, 68, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Duckett was convicted of raping and drowning 11-year-old Teresa McAbee in 1987 while serving as a police officer in central Florida. He declined to make a final statement and was pronounced dead at 1:19 PM.
Octogenarian executed for 40-year-old crime
Nearly five hours later, 80-year-old Dominick Anthony Occhicone was executed in the same chamber, becoming the oldest known prisoner executed in Florida since the state began modern record-keeping. Convicted of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986, Occhicone apologised to both the victims’ family and his own moments before his execution.
The execution began shortly after 6 pm with a three-drug lethal injection. After several minutes of deep breathing, prison officials confirmed his death at 6:13 pm. Nationally, only Walter Moody Jr, who was executed in Alabama in 2018 at the age of 83, is known to have been older.
The back-to-back executions were the first in the United States since Arkansas executed two inmates roughly three hours apart in 2017. Florida has now carried out 12 executions in 2026, more than all other US states combined. Nationwide, 19 executions have taken place this year.
DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has overseen a sharp increase in executions. Florida executed a record 19 inmates in 2025, the highest annual total by any Florida governor since the US reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
The governor has not explained why he scheduled two executions on the same day. However, he has previously defended the pace of executions, saying many victims’ families had waited decades for justice because several inmates had remained on death row since the 1980s.
