Florida is set to execute two men on the same day for the first time since 1964, a milestone that comes as capital punishment advocates and death penalty experts raise alarms about the accelerating pace of executions under Governor Ron DeSantis and the dangers that come with rushing lethal injections.
James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday at noon at Florida State Prison near Starke. Six hours later, Dominick Occhicone, 80, faces the same procedure. If both proceed, Florida will join a narrow club: the last state to execute two prisoners in a single day was Arkansas in April 2017, when it administered lethal doses to two men just three hours apart amid scenes suggesting the procedures may have gone wrong.
The twin executions underscore a dramatic shift in capital punishment across the United States. Florida has become the nation's execution leader under DeSantis. Last year the state carried out 19 killings, reversing a decade-long nationwide decline in judicial deaths. This year alone, Florida has already executed 10 people, more than double the number Texas, the traditional leader, has completed.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the decision to proceed with both executions Tuesday reflects a broader troubling pattern. DeSantis has been setting execution dates roughly every two weeks, she said, without explanation or public rationale, and without institutional checks on his authority.
"Two executions in a day is incredibly rare," Maher said. "That is consistent with the secrecy that has surrounded every execution, and every execution decision, that Florida is making these days."
Experts warn that compressing multiple executions into one day heightens the risk of botched procedures. Matt Wells, deputy director of Reprieve US, a human rights organization that has studied failed executions since 1976, said haste was a documented factor in several botched cases.
"By rushing executions, Florida is increasing the chances that these and other men will suffer a torturous death," Wells said.
Wells pointed to records showing Florida has repeatedly violated its own execution protocols, using expired drugs and incorrect dosages. The secrecy shrouding the process, he added, means violations go unaccounted for. Florida employs a paralytic agent that masks visible signs of pain, meaning "men could die in agony and witnesses wouldn't know it," he said.
In February, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the secrecy surrounding Florida's death penalty practices "intolerable."
Both men set to die Tuesday carry complicating factors. Occhicone, 80, was convicted in 1986 of murdering his former girlfriend's parents. If executed, he would be the oldest person Florida has ever put to death, surpassing Dennis Sochor, who was executed just two weeks ago at age 74. Maher described Occhicone as "a frail old man who doesn't pose a security threat to anyone."
Duckett, a former police officer, was sentenced to death for the 1987 murder of an 11-year-old girl. He has maintained his innocence, and DNA testing of crime scene evidence proved inconclusive, leaving his claim unresolved.
Both men were sent to death row by divided juries. Occhicone's jury voted 7 to 5 for capital punishment. Duckett's jury voted 8 to 4. Neither jury was unanimous in their decision.
The surge in Florida executions is one sign of turbulence in the nation's death penalty system. Prison officials across largely southern states have struggled to obtain lethal injection drugs due to international boycotts, prompting some jurisdictions to revive the firing squad. At the same time, forensic techniques long used to secure capital convictions continue to unravel under scientific scrutiny.
Last month, Louisiana's Supreme Court freed death row inmate Jimmie Duncan, ruling that bite mark analysis used to convict him was "scientifically indefensible." A forensic dentist and pathologist had testified that bite marks on a victim's body matched Duncan's teeth, a conclusion now widely rejected as junk science.
Author James Rodriguez: "Florida's execution spree represents a reckless abandonment of caution at precisely the moment when the fragility of death penalty evidence has never been clearer."
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