The Florida Supreme Court cleared the final legal hurdle for the execution of death row inmate Dennis Sochor on Wednesday, turning down his ultimate appeal less than a week before he is scheduled to die by lethal injection.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed Sochor’s death warrant on June 10, 2026, setting his execution date for July 14, 2026. Sochor was convicted of the New Year’s Eve 1981 kidnapping and first-degree murder of 18-year-old Patricia Gifford in Broward County.
Following the death warrant, Sochor filed a motion for postconviction relief raising two distinct legal arguments. A lower circuit court summarily denied the motion, leading Sochor to appeal the ruling to the state’s highest court while requesting a temporary stay of execution.
In a unanimous per curiam opinion, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s decision, stating, “we affirm the circuit court’s order and decline to stay Sochor’s execution.”
The original case dates back over 44 years. According to court records, Sochor and his brother met Gifford at a Broward County lounge on December 31, 1981, and she left with them to get breakfast. When Gifford rejected Sochor’s sexual advances, he choked her to death and hid her body, which law enforcement officials never recovered.
Sochor fled the state after seeing his photograph on a televised broadcast. Police captured him in Georgia five years later, where he gave three separate recorded confessions admitting to the murder. A jury subsequently found Sochor guilty and recommended the death penalty by a 10-to-2 vote.
In his final appeal, Sochor challenged Florida’s three-drug lethal injection protocol, specifically focusing on the use of the sedative etomidate. He argued that the drug fails to keep an inmate unconscious for longer than five minutes, causing them to experience severe pain and a sensation similar to drowning as their lungs fill with fluid from a condition known as flash pulmonary edema. Sochor claimed this constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and he proposed execution by firing squad as a constitutional alternative.
The justices rejected the argument on two fronts. First, the court ruled the claim was untimely. While Sochor argued his challenge was based on newly discovered autopsy reports from 2017 to 2026, the court noted that Florida’s execution protocol has remained unchanged since January 2017, meaning the evidence could have been discovered and brought forward years ago.
Second, the court ruled the claim lacked legal merit, noting that the judiciary has repeatedly upheld the state’s current execution procedures. “This Court has repeatedly upheld Florida’s lethal injection protocol, including the etomidate protocol,” the opinion states.
The court also dismissed a separate claim regarding a 2022 letter from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office to Sochor’s brother asking for information to find Gifford’s body, which Sochor alleged the state had improperly withheld.
With all seven justices concurring, the court declined to hold oral arguments or accept any motions for a rehearing, ordering the mandate to take effect immediately. Sochor’s execution remains scheduled for Tuesday at the Florida State Prison.
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