Alarm as Florida rushes to carry out ‘incredibly rare’ double execution

The Florida state prison in Starke, outside Jacksonville. Photograph: Curt Anderson/AP View image in fullscreen The Florida state prison in Starke, outside Jacksonville. Photograph: Curt Anderson/AP Alarm as Florida rushes to carry out ‘incredibly rare’ double execution Rights groups condemn secrecy surrounding killings and say hurry to execute raises chance of ‘torturous’ deaths Florida is preparing on Tuesday to carry out the state’s first double execution within a single day since the start of the modern era of the US death penalty in 1976. Barring last-minute legal intervention, James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at noon on Tuesday at Florida state prison near Starke. Six hours later, Dominick Occhicone, 80, faces the same fate. Should both killings be completed, it would be the first time since 2017 that a death penalty state has conducted more than one execution on the same day. On 24 April 2017 Arkansas administered lethal doses to two prisoners, Jack Jones and Marcel Williams, just three hours apart and amid chaotic scenes that suggested the procedures were botched. In Florida itself, a review by the Associated Press showed that 1964 was the last time there were multiple judicial killing on a single day. “Two executions in a day is incredibly rare,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. She added that the decision to go ahead by Florida’s hardline Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, was all the more bewildering given that it was shrouded in secrecy. “That is consistent with the secrecy that has surrounded every execution, and every execution decision, that Florida is making these days,” Maher said. Under DeSantis’s leadership, Florida has pulled way ahead of the pack of death penalty states, eclipsing even the previous champion of the ultimate punishment, Texas. Last year Florida carried out 19 executions , single-handedly reversing a decade-long decline in judicial killings in the US as a whole. This year, Florida’s blood lust continues apace. Even before Tuesday’s double execution bonanza, the state had put to death 10 people – more than double the next most prolific state, Texas, with four. “DeSantis has been setting execution dates roughly every two weeks, which is an extraordinary pace. And always without explanation or rationale, and without any sort of institutional check on his authority,” Maher said. Cramming more than one execution into a day carries with it considerable risks, experts say. The human rights group Reprieve has examined all the botched executions since 1976 and found that haste was a factor behind several of them. “By rushing executions, Florida is increasing the chances that these and other men will suffer a torturous death,” Matt Wells, deputy director of Reprieve US, said. Wells added that public records show that Florida has been violating its own execution protocols on a regular basis, using expired drugs and at the wrong doses. An iron wall of se