Florida executions 2026: State puts two men to death in one day
Florida executed James Duckett and Dominick Occhicone hours apart, the first same-day executions by a U.S. state since 2017.
By Frankie Delgado · News Reporter
3 min read
Florida executions 2026 reached a new peak Tuesday as the state put two men to death hours apart, including a former police officer convicted in the rape and drowning of an 11-year-old girl and an 80-year-old man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents.
Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke after receiving a three-drug lethal injection, according to CBS News. Nearly five hours earlier, James Aren Duckett, 68, was executed in the same death chamber and pronounced dead at 1:19 p.m.
The two executions made Florida the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions on the same day, CBS News reported. Arkansas last executed two prisoners hours apart in 2017.
Why did Florida carry out two executions in one day?
Gov. Ron DeSantis has the power under Florida law to schedule execution dates, and CBS News reported that he set both executions for Tuesday earlier this month. DeSantis has not said why he placed the two executions on the same day, though he has previously pointed to victims’ families waiting decades in cases dating to the 1980s.
“Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly,” DeSantis said last year, according to CBS News.
Occhicone was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986. CBS News reported that he is the oldest person executed in Florida since modern record-keeping began about a century ago. Nationally, Walter Moody Jr., 83, was executed in Alabama in 2018 for mail bombings in 1989 that killed a federal judge and wounded a Black civil rights attorney.
When asked if he wanted to speak before his execution, Occhicone thanked Christian visitors who had seen him over the years, apologized to his own family and to the victims’ family, and said, “I know it don’t mean much, but I’m sorry. I never meant to do what I did.”
Duckett was convicted of raping and drowning Teresa McAbee in 1987 while he was working as a police officer in central Florida, according to CBS News. He declined to make a final statement, answering “no sir” when asked.
After Duckett’s execution, Teresa’s relatives described decades of pain. “I waited nearly 40 years to have him dead,” her mother, Dorthy Tula, said before breaking down, according to CBS News. Her cousin, Tracy Mcfall-Buskirk, said, “This man took advantage of his badge.”
How many executions has Florida carried out this year?
Florida has carried out 12 executions so far in 2026, more than all other states combined, according to CBS News. Nationwide, 19 executions have taken place this year, including Tuesday’s two.
DeSantis, who leaves office in January, oversaw 19 executions last year, the highest one-year total for any Florida governor since the death penalty resumed in the United States in 1976, CBS News reported. Another Florida execution is scheduled for August.
Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty had urged DeSantis to stop both executions, describing the same-day schedule as an “unprecedented escalation” in capital punishment. The group’s executive director, Grace Hanna, said Florida was expanding use of the death penalty “despite mounting evidence that it is not what Floridians want.”
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected final appeals from both men Tuesday, after the Florida Supreme Court denied appeals last week. The Florida Department of Corrections says executions in the state use a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.
This story draws on original reporting from CBS News.