DOJ BRINGS BACK firing squad as form of execution
The Justice Department is urging a renewed use of firing squads and other execution methods for federal prisoners convicted of the most brutal crimes, advancing President Donald Trump’s pledge to place greater emphasis on victims and their families over violent offenders.
In Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected emergency requests from two death row inmates, allowing the state to move forward with what are expected to be its eleventh and twelfth executions of the year.
The justices turned down the two stay applications in separate orders tied to the scheduled executions.
James Duckett, a 68-year-old former police officer, had initially been set to be executed at noon Tuesday, though last-minute court proceedings delayed the timeline.
According to local news reports, Duckett was put to death by lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 1:19 p.m.
Mugshot of James Duckett (Florida Department of Corrections)
Duckett had been sentenced to death after being convicted in the 1987 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.
The Supreme Court also refused to halt the execution of Dominick Occhicone, 80, who was convicted of killing his former girlfriend’s parents in 1986.
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)
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 INC News 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.
