Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee, Florida.

On April 2, 2026, the Florida Supreme Court ordered new brief­ing that will extend past the war­rant dead­line for James Duckett’s exe­cu­tion. The order was issued in con­nec­tion with defense counsel’s request for fur­ther analy­sis of DNA evi­dence in Mr. Duckett’s case. Counsel for Mr. Duckett released a state­ment fol­low­ing the Court’s order, not­ing they ​“are relieved that the court has inter­vened to halt this exe­cu­tion and allow time to con­sid­er Mr. Duckett’s request for the nec­es­sary analy­sis of the DNA results.”

The Florida Supreme Court ini­tial­ly issued a stay of exe­cu­tion less than a week before Mr. Duckett’s March 31st exe­cu­tion date, pend­ing the com­ple­tion of DNA test­ing which his coun­sel argues will uncov­er the truth about his guilt. Mr. Duckett, a for­mer police offi­cer who has main­tained his inno­cence for near­ly four decades, was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1988 for the rape and mur­der of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee. Governor Ron DeSantis signed Mr. Duckett’s death war­rant on February 27, 2026, mark­ing the fifth sched­uled exe­cu­tion in Florida this year.

“Mr. Duckett has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence. No sys­tem com­mit­ted to jus­tice should fear the results of objec­tive sci­en­tif­ic analy­sis. The State’s role is not to secure exe­cu­tions at any cost, but to ensure that jus­tice is done.”

Counsel for James Duckett fol­low­ing the Florida Supreme Court’s issuance of a brief­ing sched­ule in his most recent appeal.

Counsel for Mr. Duckett has recent­ly filed a new motion for post­con­vic­tion DNA test­ing, request­ing Mr. Duckett’s DNA be com­pared with the remain­ing untest­ed bio­log­i­cal mate­r­i­al found on the victim’s cloth­ing. Mr. Duckett first sought this test­ing more than two decades ago, with his coun­sel, Beth Wells, explain­ing in a plead­ing that ​“DNA test­ing has the poten­tial to con­clu­sive­ly prove Mr. Duckett’s actu­al inno­cence and iden­ti­fy the true killer.” 

Previously, on March 6th, the Lake County Circuit Court grant­ed Mr. Duckett’s request for DNA test­ing. Judge Brian Welke agreed with the defense’s con­tention ​“that even absent the post­con­vic­tion chal­lenges, if DNA results can be obtained and if those results exclude [Mr. Duckett], there would be rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty of pro­duc­ing an acquit­tal at tri­al.” Notably, the State did not argue against this point. Parties agreed that test­ing would be con­duct­ed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and that the defense’s expert could be present for the test­ing. Judge Welke declined to issue a stay of exe­cu­tion at this time, not­ing his belief that the appro­pri­ate test­ing could be com­plet­ed before Mr. Duckett’s filing deadline.

Following Mr. Duckett’s appeal of this deci­sion, on March 26, the Florida Supreme Court issued a rare stay of exe­cu­tion1 pend­ing the results of the DNA test­ing. On March 27, the State filed a report on the DNA test­ing indi­cat­ing the results were ​“incon­clu­sive” but not­ing that ​“a qual­i­fied bioin­for­mati­cist” may be able to pro­vide more spe­cif­ic con­clu­sions. Along with the sta­tus report, the State filed a motion to lift the stay of exe­cu­tion, argu­ing that since the test­ing was com­plete and did not exon­er­ate Mr. Duckett, the stay should be lift­ed. In response, coun­sel for Mr. Duckett filed a motion request­ing the Florida Supreme Court main­tain the stay of exe­cu­tion, argu­ing that defense counsel’s expert would be able to fur­ther ana­lyze the test results if giv­en access to the data and statistics.

On April 1, Judge Welke denied Mr. Duckett’s request for access to the under­ly­ing data relat­ed to the DNA test­ing for fur­ther eval­u­a­tion of the ​“incon­clu­sive” results. Ms. Wells, coun­sel for Mr. Duckett, not­ed they ​“are not seek­ing addi­tion­al test­ing, just a right to have the under­ly­ing data eval­u­at­ed by a qual­i­fied lab that can answer the ques­tion once and for all whether Mr. Duckett is guilty of this crime.” As not­ed by Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, “[b]y deny­ing both the data and the abil­i­ty to retain an inde­pen­dent expert, the court [] effec­tive­ly insu­lat­ed these incon­clu­sive results from any meaningful scrutiny.”

The Florida Supreme Court will now con­sid­er whether to pro­vide defense coun­sel with the DNA data so that it can be fur­ther eval­u­at­ed. Briefings from all par­ties after is due by April 8. If the Court denies Mr. Duckett’s request, Gov. DeSantis will have to issue a new death war­rant for Mr. Duckett’s exe­cu­tion to proceed.

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Sources

Circuit Court Denies Duckett Access to DNA Data, Blocks Additional Analysis Despite Inconclusive Results from State Testing, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, April 1, 2026; Melanie Verdecia, State reports incon­clu­sive DNA results and seeks to pro­ceed with Duckett exe­cu­tion, Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty, March 28, 2026; Melanie Verdecia, DUCKETT WARRANT: Stay Granted Pending DNA Results, Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty, March 26, 2026; Dan Sullivan, Facing exe­cu­tion, an ex-Florida cop banks on DNA to prove his inno­cence, Tampa Bay Times, March 10, 2026; Melanie Verdecia, NEW WARRANT: James Duckett’s exe­cu­tion sched­uled March 31, Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty, February 28, 2026.

Footnotes

  1. Before Mr. Duckett’s stay of exe­cu­tion, the last time a stay of exe­cu­tion was issued by the Florida Supreme Court was on October 23, 2019, in the case of James Dailey.