Overview
- The Florida Supreme Court on Friday denied a stay for James Aren Duckett, clearing the way for his scheduled noon execution at Florida State Prison on July 28 while his lawyers press emergency relief in federal court and to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Attorneys for Duckett and Dominick Occhicone filed a joint federal lawsuit on Friday seeking injunctions, extra DNA testing and claims that executing two men the same day would violate the Eighth Amendment.
- Court‑ordered DNA testing in Duckett’s case returned inconclusive results and defense lawyers say the testing used up the remaining sample while the state refused out‑of‑state whole‑genome sequencing the defense had requested.
- The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops formally asked Gov. Ron DeSantis on July 21 to stay the executions and commute both sentences to life without parole, calling the plan to execute two men in one day "especially callous."
- If carried out July 28, the executions would be the first double execution in Florida since 1964 and would include Dominick Occhicone, who at about 80 would be the oldest person the state has executed since 1976, against the backdrop of a sharp rise in Florida executions since 2025.