This combination of undated booking photos provided by the Florida Department of Corrections in July 2026 shows, from left, Dusty Ray Spencer, Dennis Sochor and Dominick Occhicone. (Florida Department of Corrections via AP)

MIAMI - The last prisoner strapped to a table in Florida's death chamber was 74 years old - the oldest the state has executed in modern times. The next two set to die are older still.

The series of executions, due to be carried out by the end of this month, highlights the nation's aging death-row population. One of Florida's prisoners scheduled to die in July, a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents in 1986, is 80 years old and would be only the second known octogenarian to be executed in the U.S.


For some, it renews questions about the humanity of administering capital punishment to inmates who might soon die from natural causes. For others, it illustrates how lengthy appeals designed to ensure constitutional protections and prevent innocent people from being executed can also delay justice.

 Is this intentional, as though to say, we're not going to let a natural death help you escape executions?  asked the Rev. Dustin Feddon, a Catholic priest who has been ministering to Florida death row inmates since 2013. Noting the church's opposition to capital punishment, he added:  To execute those that are the most frail and elderly is even more cruel and unusual. 

Marilyn Gifford, whose sister's killer is set to die Tuesday, doesn't see it that way.

 I'm just happy it's ever happening in our lifetime,  she said.  I wish my mother was alive to see it. 

Death warrants follow decades on death row

On June 25, Dusty Ray Spencer, who was convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1992, became the oldest person executed in Florida in modern history. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the 74-year-old's appeal that his liver disease rendered him susceptible to excruciating pain from lethal injection.

Dennis Sochor, convicted of killing 18-year-old Patricia Gifford just hours into 1982 after meeting her at a New Year's Eve party, would be just a

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