FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The state of Florida is set to execute two death row inmates on the same day for the first time in more than 60 years, now that the suspension of a former police officer scheduled to die earlier this year for killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987 has been lifted.

James Aren Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die at noon July 28 at Florida State Prison near Starke, according to a death warrant signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Duckett was convicted of raping and drowning the girl while working as a police officer in a small central Florida town.

The execution of Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, was previously scheduled for 6 p.m. that same day. He was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986.

This is the first time Florida plans to execute two inmates on the same day since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty nationwide in 1976, after temporarily suspending executions in 1972.

Duckett and Occhicone would become the 11th and 12th inmates executed in Florida this year if their deaths go as planned. Appeals in both cases will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court before any executions are carried out.

DeSantis oversaw a record 19 executions in 2025, more in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous high was eight executions set in 2014.

DeSantis previously signed a death warrant for Duckett in February, scheduling his execution for March 31. But the Florida Supreme Court issued a stay just days before the execution to allow DNA testing of old evidence that could not be performed due to technological limitations at the time of the original trial. The results were inconclusive, meaning they neither exonerated Duckett nor definitively connected him to the crime. The judges allowed the jury’s verdict to stand and Duckett’s suspension was lifted earlier this month.

Duckett’s attorney, Mary Elizabeth Wells, issued a statement calling the rescheduled execution shameful and saying the state’s handling of DNA evidence is the reason for the inconclusive results.

“Mr. Duckett has consistently maintained his innocence,” the statement said. “The State’s duty is to ensure that justice is served and not to rush to kill in a case with serious questions about guilt. We are committed to seeking all avenues of relief for Mr. Duckett before his scheduled execution on July 28, so that the State of Florida does not execute an innocent man.”

The governor’s office declined to comment on Duckett’s case or these particular executions, but DeSantis has previously said his goal is to bring justice to the families of victims who have waited decades for their death sentences to be carried out.

“Some of these crimes were committed in the 1980s,” the governor said during a news conference in November 2025. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to assure them that this would go smoothly. If I honestly thought someone was innocent, I wouldn’t pull the trigger.”

According to Florida Department of Corrections records, Emmett C. Blake and Sie Dawson were executed for murder on May 12, 1964. State records show that multiple executions in a single day were more common in the past.

Occhicone would also become the state’s oldest inmate to be executed.

On June 25, Florida executed Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, for the murder of his ex-wife. He was the oldest inmate executed in Florida until Tuesday, when Dennis Sochor, just a week older than Spencer, was executed for killing a woman in the early hours of 1982, after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Occhicone would also become the second-oldest prisoner to be executed in modern U.S. history after Walter Moody Jr., 83, was executed in Alabama in 2018 for killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights lawyer during a wave of mail bombs in the South.

Executions in Florida are carried out by lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.