State prison system with Tallahassee HQ and a $3.3B budget
Florida is preparing to execute 74-year-old Dennis Sochor, potentially the oldest inmate in state history, with a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison. He is among three elderly inmates scheduled to die within a month, as Florida’s death row population continues to age. The governor’s scheduling discretion remains a point of commentary as appeals are exhausted.
Sochor has been executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke for the 1982 murder of 18-year-old Patricia Gifford, becoming the oldest death-row inmate to be executed in Florida’s modern history. The state’s aging death row population continues to shape its judicial calendar.
Florida has carried out two lethal injections six hours apart, making this the first time the state executes two inmates in a single day in more than 60 years. The two men, James Aren Duckett (68) and Dominick Anthony Occhicone (80), are the 11th and 12th inmates executed in Florida in 2026 as Governor DeSantis accelerates the state’s death-penalty calendar.
Florida has carried out its 14th execution of the year. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, has received a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison after waiving post-conviction appeals. He was convicted for the 1976 murder of Jill Piper and attempted murders of two friends. The governor has signed death warrants for two additional executions later this September.