double execution

The U.S. Supreme Court denied stays for two Florida death row inmates scheduled to be executed Tuesday, clearing the way for the state to execute the eleventh and twelfth inmates this year. The court denied two separate requests for stays in the planned executions. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, had been scheduled to die at noon on Tuesday, but the Supreme Court's stay pushed the execution back. Duckett, according to reports, was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 1:19 p.m. Duckett was convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl in 1987.