Florida carries out first double execution in nearly a decade, revealing inmates' final meals

Florida carried out two lethal-injection executions on Tuesday, the first double execution in the state since 1964. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, and Dominick Occhicone, 80, were put to death in the same chamber at the state prison near Starke, less than five hours apart. Both inmates had been denied appeals and stays of execution by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier that day.

Duckett, convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl in 1987, requested eggs, grits, bacon, biscuits and chocolate milk for his final meal, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Occhicone, sentenced for the 1986 killings of his ex-girlfriend’s parents, asked for eggplant parmesan, a salad, garlic bread and a Pepsi.

The Department of Corrections said the inmates were moved to death-watch cells at 4:45 a.m. Duckett declined to make a final statement, and after the three-drug protocol began, he was pronounced dead at 1:19 p.m. Occhicone, accompanied by a spiritual adviser, offered a brief apology, saying, "Sorry for all the hurt I caused," before being pronounced dead at the scheduled 6 p.m. execution time.

Duckett was the 11th and Occhicone the 12th person executed in Florida this year. Occhicone became the second-oldest prisoner executed in modern U.S. history, after Walter Moody Jr., who was executed at age 83 in 2018. The double execution follows a recent trend in which Florida accounted for nearly half of all U.S. executions in 2025.