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.