All articles tagged with #duckett
Florida carried out two executions in one day—the first back-to-back state executions in nearly a decade—highlighting Gov. Ron DeSantis’s push to accelerate capital punishment. 80-year-old Dominick Anthony Occhicone was executed, making him the oldest Floridian put to death in modern times, hours after former police officer James Aren Duckett was executed for the 1987 rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee.
Former Lake County police officer James Aren Duckett was put to death by lethal injection in Florida, the first of two planned executions on the same day, with 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone slated for the second. Duckett, who raped and drowned 11-year-old Teresa McAbee in 1987, saw DNA testing on old evidence yield inconclusive results. The move comes amid Gov. DeSantis’s accelerated death-penalty pace, marking Florida’s first back-to-back executions since 2017.
Florida is set to carry out two lethal injections on Tuesday, six hours apart—the first time since 2017 a U.S. state schedules two executions in one day. Ex-police officer James Aren Duckett, 68, and 80-year-old Dominick Anthony Occhicone would be executed at noon and later that day, respectively, bringing Florida’s total executions this year to 11 and 12. The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals for both; Duckett’s DNA evidence yielded inconclusive results, and Occhicone faces health issues. The governor, Ron DeSantis, has overseen a record pace of executions, with 19 in 2025 and 31 in two years. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty opposes the moves. If carried out, Occhicone would become the oldest inmate executed in Florida’s modern history, and the second-oldest in U.S. history, following an 83-year-old executed in Alabama in 2018. Florida’s executions are carried out by a three-drug lethal-injection protocol.”,