Two Florida death row inmates are scheduled to be executed hours aside on Tuesday, which might mark the primary time in greater than six many years the state places to death a number of individuals inside a single day, as state officers proceed to ramp up executions.
“I’m not shocked anymore by the number of death warrants that are being signed, but it struck me as a kind of rupture to the system that we would execute two people within six hours from one another,” stated Father Dustin Feddon, a Catholic priest who has been visiting prisoners on Florida’s death row for greater than a decade.
Feddon presently ministers to James Duckett, who’s scheduled to be executed at midday on Tuesday. Duckett has spent greater than three many years on death row after being convicted of murdering 11-year-old Teresa McAbee in 1987.
Hours after Duckett’s death, the state plans to execute Dominick Occhicone, an 80-year-old man who could be the second octogenarian ever executed in the US death penalty’s trendy period, in accordance to information from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). He was convicted of double-murder in 1987 for killing his former girlfriend’s dad and mom, Raymond and Martha Artzner.
The scheduling of two executions – each through deadly injection – in one day comes as Florida has accelerated its tempo of executions, whilst other states have abolished or paused the apply. Under the administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida executed 19 death row inmates in 2025 – a file excessive, and greater than double the state’s earlier file in trendy historical past, in accordance to DPIC. It has already put 10 prisoners to death this yr.
“This administration is the most active death penalty administration we’ve ever seen,” Maria DeLiberato, senior counsel on the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, advised NCS.
The latest enhance considerations advocates in half as a result of Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations, DPIC data shows: Since 1973, 30 individuals on Florida’s death row have been freed after serving time for a criminal offense they didn’t commit.
When requested concerning the schedule and elevated tempo of executions, a spokesperson for the governor pointed to feedback he had beforehand made in which he expressed a perception the death penalty is an “appropriate punishment for the worst offenders” that may very well be a “strong deterrent.”
“There’s victims’ families that are wanting to see justice, that I’m doing my part to deliver that,” he stated in November 2025.
NCS was unable to attain the households of Duckett’s and Occhicone’s victims for remark.
Carrying out a number of executions inside a day is uncommon in the fashionable period, with solely two states doing so in the previous 26 years: Arkansas in 2017 and Texas in 2000. Florida hasn’t executed greater than one individual in a single day since 1964, in accordance to the state’s correctional records.
Advocates say placing two men to death hours aside may put extra stress on the execution course of, growing the danger of potential problems.
“To add in that kind of pressure in Florida, where already there have been more executions in that one state alone than there have been in the rest of the US this year – it’s asking for more problems,” stated Maya Foa, the CEO of Reprieve, a global nonprofit group that opposes the death penalty.
Both inmates have filed lawsuits in search of to halt their executions, together with one that argues they might undergo so-called “botched” executions due to the compressed timeline. Those appeals stay pending.
Duckett and Occhicone have been each convicted by juries, and appellate courts have denied a number of makes an attempt to overturn their death sentences – though Duckett has maintained his innocence.
Duckett, a former police officer in Mascotte, Florida, was the final individual seen with 11-year-old Teresa McAbee, whose physique was later discovered in a lake, in accordance to court docket paperwork.
The health worker decided she had been sexually assaulted, strangled and drowned. Circumstantial proof – together with Duckett’s and Teresa’s “comingled fingerprints” on his patrol automotive and distinctive tire tracks discovered on the homicide scene that matched his car’s – implicated Duckett because the assassin, the Florida Supreme Court stated in a ruling this month.
The court docket lately cleared the best way for Duckett’s execution after post-conviction DNA testing outcomes – which his attorneys claimed may have demonstrated his innocence – got here again inconclusive. His attorneys declare the state selected a laboratory that might not carry out the suitable testing.
“The State’s duty is to ensure that justice is done, and not rush to kill in a case with such serious doubts over guilt,” his protection attorneys stated in an announcement. “We are committed to seeking every avenue of relief for Mr. Duckett ahead of his scheduled July 28 execution so that the State of Florida does not execute an innocent man.”
Occhicone was sentenced to death after he was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s dad and mom in 1986. After his former girlfriend refused to speak to him, he lower the phone strains to the household’s house and fatally shot each Raymond and Martha Artzner, in accordance to court docket paperwork.
Attorneys for Occhicone declined to remark when reached by NCS.
If Occhicone is put to death on Tuesday, the 80-year-old would be the oldest inmate executed in Florida, surpassing two 74-year-olds who have been put to death simply weeks in the past.
He lately argued his execution needs to be known as off as a result of it could violate his Eighth Amendment protections in opposition to merciless and weird punishment, due in half to his age and associated well being problems – an argument the state Supreme Court rejected final week.
But Feddon, the priest, agreed with Occhicone’s argument, calling the latest executions in Florida “unconscionable.”
Feddon, who’s in opposition to the death penalty, considers it “even more cruel and unusual” to execute “people that are already vulnerable and frail physically, mentally, because of their age,” he stated.
“It’s almost as though the state, maybe, or some in the state do not want these men to escape execution by way of natural death, and that to me is deeply troubling as well,” he stated. “That’s something that I think that we have to just examine our own conscience as to the motivation for signing a death warrant for an 80-year-old man.”
After the US Supreme Court reinstated use of the death penalty in 1976, executions peaked in 1999, when practically 100 individuals have been put to death nationwide.
Since then, use of the death penalty in America has generally declined, with a dwindling variety of jurisdictions liable for a rising portion of executions.
But the nationwide complete final yr practically doubled in contrast to the yr prior, with 11 states executing 47 inmates – 19 of whom have been in Florida, DPIC information reveals. And greater than half of the executions which have taken place this yr occurred in Florida, which has already put 10 inmates to death, according to the organization.
“The pace of executions and the signing of death warrants is very different to the national picture,” stated Foa, the CEO of Reprieve. “This is an execution spree at a grand scale.”
Florida is one of the few states the place the governor has sole authority to concern a death warrant, the authorized doc that units an inmate’s execution date, in accordance to the DPIC. Allowing the manager department to deal with the method with little enter from the judiciary creates a secretive system that’s ripe for abuse, advocates stated.
“For all we know it could be the governor throwing darts at a dartboard, spinning a roulette wheel,” stated DeLiberato, who can also be the authorized and coverage director for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “(It) should be a very transparent process and it’s not. But because it’s not, that’s what we’re left to speculate with. We really have no idea.”
DeSantis – who was first elected governor in 2018 and unsuccessfully ran for president in 2024 – has ramped up executions lately, which DeLiberato stated falls in line with President Donald Trump’s calls to expand the death penalty.
“All appearances seem to indicate that Governor DeSantis and his administration is using the death penalty and using this incredible, unrelenting pace of executions to bolster his political future,” she stated.
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DeSantis beforehand stated executions began rising years after he first took workplace as a result of his administration had to get its “sea legs” and that the state’s corrections division was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. He stated through the years, his administration heard from some victims’ households, and the governor felt he was “letting some of them down.”
“There’s a saying, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’” he stated final yr. “And so I felt that I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly and promptly.”
The inmates dwelling on death row are aware of the escalation, advocates stated, and have began to acknowledge patterns indicating when a brand new death warrant could also be served – corresponding to listening to a particular jingle of keys down the hallway, or recognizing an officer in a specific uniform.
“Most of these men are very aware that not only has it (been) accelerating, but with executing two men on the same day, it keeps accelerating even more,” Feddon stated.
The priest, like he has many occasions earlier than, can be in the “death chamber” with Duckett throughout his last moments on Tuesday, ought to his execution proceed.
“I’ll sit next to James with my hand on his leg, the bottom half of his leg, and he and I will undoubtedly pray a little bit together,” Feddon stated. “And then I’ll begin the prayers of what we pray in the Catholic Church, the commendation for the dying, the prayers for the dying.”
He will carry communion and oil, which is used to anoint people who find themselves getting ready to die in the sacrament of final rites.
“Oftentimes I’ll think, ‘Why are we as a state still choosing to answer violence by killing people?’” the priest stated. “And yet at the same time, I’m able to draw on some degree of consolation, trusting that the God who is infinitely merciful is present to James and to myself.”