The Florida Supreme Court has cleared the final legal hurdles for two death row inmates, unanimously rejecting separate appeals from Dominick A. Occhicone and James Aren Duckett and setting the stage for the state’s first same-day double execution in over 60 years.
Both men are scheduled to die by lethal injection on Tuesday, July 28, at Florida State Prison.
In an opinion issued Friday, the state’s high court denied Duckett’s sixth successive motion for postconviction relief and his request for additional DNA testing. Duckett, 68, a former Mascotte police officer, was convicted in the 1988 rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee. His execution is set for noon.
The court ruled that Duckett’s petition for testing on clothing, swabs, and fingernail scrapings was procedurally barred, noting he was aware of the items when filing a prior motion in March. The justices also referenced 2003 findings showing the items lacked testable genetic material due to degradation.
Additionally, the court dismissed claims that the state violated Duckett’s due process rights by sending a semen sample from the victim’s underwear to a Florida laboratory that consumed the remaining sample during testing without producing conclusive results. Duckett’s defense argued the sample should have gone to a Texas facility using Whole Genome Sequencing.
“The total consumption of the sample without conclusive results was an unfortunate byproduct of the testing that Duckett himself requested,” the court stated, adding that Duckett failed to demonstrate bad faith by the state.
Chief Justice Couriel and Justices Muñiz, Grosshans, Francis, and Sasso concurred in the majority opinion. Justice Labarga concurred separately, addressing a partial dissent from Justice Tanenbaum, who argued the appeal was frivolous and called for sanctions against Duckett’s attorneys for unreasonable delay.
Labarga wrote that counsel on both sides face immense pressure under active death warrants, noting, “even those condemned to death and facing execution are entitled to access to our courts.”
Six hours after Duckett’s scheduled execution, the state plans to execute 80-year-old Occhicone at 6:00 p.m. The court similarly rejected Occhicone’s final appeals and stay requests earlier in the week.
Occhicone was sentenced to death for the 1986 murder of his former fiancée’s mother, Martha Artzner, in Pasco County. Records show Occhicone broke into the home armed with a handgun, shot his ex-fiancée’s father, Raymond Artzner, outside, and then broke through an interior door to shoot Martha Artzner four times. The jury recommended death by a 7–5 vote for Martha Artzner’s murder, while the trial judge sentenced him to life for Raymond Artzner’s death.
Occhicone’s attorneys raised multiple challenges, including reported shortages of the execution drug etomidate, his advanced age and medical conditions, and a request for a six-month moratorium to study the psychological impact of frequent executions on prison personnel. The defense also argued that his 7–5 jury recommendation would be invalid under modern state law, which now requires at least eight jurors to recommend death.
The court rejected each argument, ruling that public records requests regarding drug supplies lacked a direct legal claim, age-based exemptions are not recognized under Eighth Amendment precedent, and statutory jury changes do not apply retroactively to older cases.
If executed, Occhicone will become the oldest person executed in Florida’s modern history, surpassing 74-year-old Dennis Sochor, who was executed earlier this month for a 1982 murder. Nationally, Occhicone would be the second-oldest person put to death in the modern era, behind Alabama inmate Walter Moody Jr., who was executed at age 83 in 2018.
If both executions proceed on July 28, it will mark the first time Florida has executed two inmates on the same day since 1964, when Blake Emmett and Dawson Sie were put to death in the electric chair. Florida has not granted executive clemency in a capital case since 1983.
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