STARKE, Fla. — For the first time in more than 60 years, Florida plans to execute two people in one day on Tuesday, a macabre milestone not achieved since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

The last time two people were executed on the same day in Florida was in May 1964, when two men were electrocuted in the same chair. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis, who broke national records last year with 19 executions, is racing to exceed that total as he finishes out his last year in office. 

At noon, the state is scheduled to employ its three-drug protocol to execute James Duckett, 68. A former officer in the Mascotte, Fla., police department, Duckett kidnapped, raped and murdered 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee in May 1987, abandoning her body near a lake. 

Six hours after Duckett is put to death, Dominick Occhicone, 80, is set to become the oldest man executed by the state since the death penalty’s reinstatement.

Occhicone was convicted of the 1986 murders of Raymond and Martha Artzner, whom he blamed for breaking up his relationship with his girlfriend, their daughter. Occhicone shot the couple inside their house in the town of Holiday. 

If both executions take place, that will raise to 12 the state’s tally in the first seven months of the year, putting Florida on pace to exceed 2025.  That is three times the current number in Texas, six times that of Alabama, and 12 times the total in South Carolina, collectively the only other states to have carried out executions this year.

DeSantis has already signed his 13th death warrant, with the execution scheduled to take place in less than three weeks. 

The scheduled executions of Duckett and Occhicone follow the denial of a series of court petitions alleging violations of the Eighth Amendment barring cruel and unusual punishment. One petition argued that scheduling the executions back to back made it impossible to review whether complications with the first could merit a rescheduling of the second. That appeal for a delay was dismissed within a day.

“The Court sees nothing irrational about the State wanting to conduct multiple executions on the same day for the sake of convenience and efficiency,” a U.S. district court in Tallahassee found.

Separate claims that added stress on the execution team could result in errors were “nothing more than conjecture and speculation,” the court stated.

The “speculative harm” suffered by the two men being put to death within a day, the court added, is “far outweighed by the interest of the State and the public in administering long-overdue justice.” It did not comment on whether the second execution ought to be halted if there are procedural issues with the first. 

Florida’s execution protocol — last reviewed by Ricky Dixon, then-corrections secretary, in 2025 — doesn’t explicitly account for such a scenario.

Florida Department of Corrections policies lay out the schedule for a condemned prisoner on his or her last day. On the morning of the execution, between 8 and 10, family members and friends are allowed to visit. Then, between noon and 2 p.m., the condemned prisoner can meet with a spiritual advisor. Scheduling two executions in one day has necessitated a change. 

Duckett’s final family visit was conducted Monday, although he was scheduled to meet his spiritual advisor between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Tuesday. 

The back-to-back scheduling was denounced by opponents of capital punishment, who were planning a vigil Tuesday. 

“July 28 represents an unprecedented escalation of Florida’s use of the death penalty,” said Grace Hanna, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. 

The accelerated rate of executions comes despite documented issues in at least half of Florida’s executions last year. 

A February 2026 investigation by The Florida Trib and Mother Jones found issues, based on the Florida Department of Corrections’ own drug logs, ranging from the use of expired and unprescribed drugs to underdosings. Eyewitness testimonies described men strapped on the gurney who appeared to be heaving, with one falling off the steel bed, and another whose eyes rolled back in his head. Autopsy reports of those executed showed signs of pulmonary edema — a condition described by an anesthesiologist as causing “the terror that accompanies drowning and asphyxiation as they choke on their own blood.”  

None of those issues have prompted a reevaluation of how the state carries out the death penalty. 

“If this works for him, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next time he does three executions in one day,” Ron McAndrew, a former Florida warden, said of Gov. DeSantis. McAndrew oversaw Florida’s executions from 1996 to 1998, including three by the electric chair. 

McAndrew was in charge in 1997 when the chair malfunctioned, causing the head of a condemned man, Pedro Medina, to burst into flames. 

“I had a man that was on fire — burning to death — and I couldn’t stop it,” said McAndrew, now a prison consultant. “I had a warrant that said I was required to kill this man. No questions asked.” 

In April 2014, Oklahoma faced a similar malfunction. The execution of Clayton Lockett went awry when the execution team struggled to find IV access to administer the lethal drugs, halting the execution midway. A second execution scheduled two hours later was postponed. 

Lockett would die of a heart attack 43 hours after the botched procedure. 

Lockett’s case led to a state-level investigation, which determined that executions should be spaced at least seven days apart. Conducting two executions on the same day created “extra stress” for the warden, medical personnel, and execution team, it found. “The paramedic stated he/she felt stress and a sense of urgency in the air,” the investigation found. 

By 2024, a court in Oklahoma granted a request — by the state director of corrections, backed by the state’s attorney general — for executions to have approximately a 90-day gap between them. 

Other states that conduct executions have passed similar requirements. 

A 2024 petition filed by five South Carolina Death Row inmates stated: “Scheduling executions close in time to one another heightens the risk of serious error during the execution, likely resulting in cruel or unusual punishment.” 

A court concurred, and the state enacted a 35-day minimum gap between executions.

In Missouri, there can be only one execution per month.

Oishika Neogi is special correspondent for The Florida Trib who writes about the death penalty and is working on a grant-funded project about in-custody deaths. She is a New York-based investigative reporter covering the criminal justice system, prisons and other social issues. Formerly a fellow with Columbia Journalism Investigations, her work has appeared in outlets such as NBC News, New York Focus, Forbidden Stories, and Al Jazeera.