Florida is set to execute two murderers in a single day for the first time since 1964 — a sharp contrast to the progressive prosecutors across America who refuse to charge repeat offenders while communities suffer the consequences.
James Duckett, 68, a former Mascotte police officer, is scheduled to die at noon by lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 1987 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee. The girl had walked to a convenience store to buy a pencil. Prosecutors say Duckett abducted her; her strangled and drowned body was found in a lake the next day. Dominick Occhicone, 80, follows at 6 p.m., convicted of the 1986 murders of his ex-girlfriend's parents. After she left him over his violent abuse, Occhicone cut the phone line, shot Raymond Artzner in the face, and shot Martha Artzner four times.
If both executions proceed, they will be the 11th and 12th carried out in Florida this year. The Gainesville Sun reported the facts of the crimes and the procedural history straightforwardly: Duckett received a stay in March for DNA testing, which proved inconclusive, before Governor Ron DeSantis issued a new death warrant.
The Guardian, meanwhile, framed the day as cause for "alarm," calling the executions "killings" and quoting anti-death penalty advocates who criticized the pace and secrecy. Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center called the double execution "incredibly rare" and "bewildering." Matt Wells of Reprieve US claimed Florida is "increasing the chances that these and other men will suffer a torturous death" and alleged the state uses expired drugs and a paralytic to mask visible pain. The Guardian also noted Occhicone's age — he would be the oldest prisoner executed in Florida history — as a "complication."
What The Guardian buried: the crimes. An 11-year-old girl raped and murdered. Two parents gunned down in their home by a man who blamed them for his own violence. These are not abstract policy arguments. These are the stakes that ordinary Americans weigh when they see repeat offenders walk free in cities where progressive prosecutors decline to charge.
Florida under DeSantis has carried out more executions than any other state, surpassing even Texas. Last year the state executed 19 inmates. Whether that pace is justice or overreach is a legitimate debate. But the framing gap tells you everything: one outlet reported what these men did and what the state is doing about it; the other called it "blood lust" and worried about the killers' comfort.
The question isn't whether the state should have the power of life and death — it does, and the founders debated that power in taverns under British rule. The question is whether the system will use it accountably, or whether it will keep letting the worst among us off the hook while the victims' families wait decades for closure.
