From the Tampa Bay Times 8/6/26
The window shade rose promptly at 6 p.m. The gallery was silent, apart from the humming of an air conditioning unit. A man lay flat on a gurney, covered in a white sheet and bound by six leather straps.
Twenty-seven people watched as he took his last breath.
On July 28, Dominick Occhicone became the 12th inmate to die by lethal injection in Florida this year, and the oldest person put to death since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979. The 80-year-old died five hours after James Duckett was put to death in the same room.
The back-to-back executions were the first in Florida since 1964 — another record amid an unprecedented rise in executions. Gov. Ron DeSantis has ordered more executions than any of his predecessors, totaling 33 since the start of 2025 and 42 since he took office in 2019.
There are 239 inmates on Florida’s death row. Of those, 34 are from the Tampa Bay area.
The governor has not publicly explained how he chooses which inmate is next to die, or whether he’s concerned about the strain the accelerated pace of killing has on the prison staff tasked with carrying it out.
His office declined to comment. Instead, a spokesperson referred to comments DeSantis made at the Florida Sheriffs Association summer conference, held in Miami on the night of the executions.
“I just presided today over two executions in the same day, first time that’s happened in a long time,” the governor said. “I don’t take joy in doing that. It’s a weighty thing.”
The pandemic delayed the scheduling of executions, he said, and victims’ families have been waiting a long time.
“We do owe it to them to do it. The process is way too long,” DeSantis said. “You shouldn’t be going for 20 years. You should be able to try and maybe appeal, but then at some point we’ve got to get cracking here. ... That makes a big difference for a lot of people out there who suffered really serious tragedies.”
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