DOJ BRINGS BACK firing squad as form of execution
The Justice Department is recommending the return of firing squads and other execution methods for federal inmates convicted of heinous crimes, fulfilling a President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to prioritize victims over serious offenders.
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The U.S. Supreme Court denied stays for two Florida death row inmates scheduled to be executed Tuesday, clearing the way for the state to execute the eleventh and twelfth inmates this year.
The court denied two separate requests for stays in the planned executions.
Former police officer James Duckett, 68, had been scheduled to die at noon on Tuesday, but the Supreme Court’s stay pushed the execution back.
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Duckett, according to local media reports, was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 1:19 p.m.
Mugshot of James Duckett (Florida Department of Corrections)
Duckett was convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl in 1987.
The Supreme Court also denied a separate stay for Dominick Occhicone, an 80-year-old who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986.
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Occhicone’s execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. If executed, he would become the oldest inmate executed in Florida.
Mugshot of Dominick Occhicone. (Florida Department of Corrections)
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If carried out, Occhicone’s execution would mark the first time Florida executed two inmates in one day since 1964. It would be the just the second double execution in the U.S. in the 2000s and the first since Arkansas executed two inmates in 2007.
Clouds hover over the entrance of the Florida State Prison in Starke, Fla., Aug. 3, 2023. (AP)
Florida executed 19 inmates in 2025, according to a Fox News Digital review of Florida Department of Corrections data. The 11 people the state has executed so far this year are more than double the next closest state, with Texas having executed four inmates this year, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
