The Florida Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal from former Mascotte police officer James Aren Duckett, potentially clearing the path for the state to reschedule his execution following a dramatic sequence of legal battles over DNA evidence.
Duckett was sentenced to death in 1988 for the kidnapping, rape, and strangulation of 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee. On May 11, 1987, Duckett was on patrol duty when he encountered McAbee walking out of a convenience store with a 16-year-old boy.
Duckett questioned them and told McAbee to go home. Later, the teenager and his uncle witnessed Duckett and McAbee standing near his patrol car before the two entered the vehicle and drove away. That was the last time the girl was seen alive. Her body was found the next day by a fisherman along the shore of Knight Lake.
Investigators tied Duckett to the crime through a pubic hair found at the scene, palm prints from both Duckett and McAbee on the hood of the patrol car, and tire tracks matching the police vehicle. Duckett was suspended from the force on June 16, 1987, and fired three days later, ending his seven-month employment.
Aside from the McAbee case, Duckett is a suspect in the 1987 unsolved murder of 14-year-old Jeanifer Shyan Weldon and the 1986 murder of an unidentified petite woman with reddish-brown hair found in a water-filled pit near Lakeland.
Duckett was formally indicted in October 1987. During his 1988 trial, FBI forensic expert Michael Malone testified that a pubic hair from the scene matched Duckett. On May 10, 1988, a Lake County jury found Duckett guilty of first-degree murder and sexual battery, recommending the death penalty. Circuit Judge Jerry Lockett sentenced Duckett to death by the electric chair alongside a life sentence for sexual battery.
Duckett has maintained his innocence throughout his decades on death row. His defense team repeatedly challenged the conviction, especially after Malone, the FBI expert, came under investigation for giving false testimony and scientifically flawed evidence in other cases. In 2003, retired homicide detective Marshall Frank initially claimed Duckett was innocent due to misinterpreted evidence, though Frank later reversed his stance after reviewing the other unsolved murders.
Duckett’s execution was scheduled for March 31, 2026, after Governor Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant. However, on March 26, the Florida Supreme Court halted the execution to allow for last-minute DNA testing. The results, returned on March 27, were inconclusive.
Attorney General James Uthmeier moved to lift the stay, arguing the testing failed to exonerate Duckett. On April 30, the Florida Supreme Court ordered further analysis of the DNA samples by a private laboratory, Othram, Inc., reversing a lower court ruling that rejected more testing.
On June 22, 2026, a Lake County judge denied Duckett’s request for an evidentiary hearing to review the procedures and results of the recent testing. Duckett appealed that denial to the state’s highest court.
In a ruling issued today, July 1, 2026, the Florida Supreme Court dismissed Duckett’s appeal, stating that Florida statutes and criminal procedures do not provide for an evidentiary hearing after DNA results have already been provided to the court and both parties. Chief Justice Carlos G. Muñiz and Justices John D. Couriel, Jamie R. Grosshans, Renatha Francis, Meredith Sasso, and Antony Barone Tanenbaum concurred.
Justice Jorge Labarga dissented, arguing that the court had the necessary jurisdiction and should have reviewed the lower court’s order given the high-stakes, ongoing collateral proceedings tied to Duckett’s active death warrant.
With the appeal officially dismissed, the stay on Duckett’s death sentence faces renewed challenges as the state moves forward with the capital punishment process.
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