Florida is scheduled to become the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day Tuesday, planning lethal injections for an ex-police officer convicted of a young girl's murder and an octogenarian who would be the second-oldest inmate put to death in modern U.S. history. The planned injections come 18 months after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis began stepping up executions at a rate unseen in modern times in Florida.

James Aren Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at noon at Florida State Prison near Starke, followed later that day by 80-year-old Dominick Anthony Occhicone. Duckett was convicted of raping and drowning an 11-year-old girl while working as a police officer in a small central Florida city in 1987. Occhicone was convicted of the 1986 killings of his ex-girlfriend's parents.

Duckett and Occhicone would become Florida's 11th and 12th inmates to be executed this year. The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals for both men last week. Both men still had appeals pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

DeSantis, who leaves office in January, oversaw a record 19 executions in 2025, more in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. The previous high was eight executions set in 2014. If Tuesday's executions proceed, that would bring the total for DeSantis' final two years in office up to 31 overall, compared to just nine executions during the first six years of his administration.

With another execution already set for August, 2026 could also be a record-breaking year. Florida Department of Corrections records show multiple executions on a single day were more common in the past, with the last being on May 12, 1964.

Occhicone would become Florida's oldest inmate to be executed, just weeks after two 74-year-old men briefly held that spot. Recent executions have highlighted the nation's aging death-row population and renewed questions about the humanity of administering capital punishment to inmates who might die soon from natural causes. Occhicone also would become the second-oldest prisoner known to be executed in modern U.S. history after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr. Florida executions are all by injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.