TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The State of Florida plans to execute 74-year-old United States Army veteran Dennis Sochor on Tuesday, July 14, at 6 p.m. ET for the 1981 murder of Patricia Gifford in Broward County. If carried out, the execution would be Florida’s 10th execution this year, the 11th military veteran executed under Governor Ron DeSantis, and the 38th carried out during his administration. Mr. Sochor would also become the oldest person ever executed in Florida.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) is calling for the execution to be stayed and for Mr. Sochor’s sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the only alternative sentence for first degree murder in Florida. Thousands of citizens have joined FADP’s petition and letter-writing campaign urging Gov. DeSantis and the Florida Board of Executive Clemency to halt the execution. 

If the execution proceeds on July 14, FADP staff, members, and supporters from across the state will gather for a peaceful vigil beginning at 5 p.m. ET outside the execution chamber at Florida State Prison (23916 NW 83rd Ave., Raiford). Additional vigils will take place throughout the state.

U.S. Supreme Court Asked to Review How Florida Courts Handle Claims of Eighth Amendment Violations

On Saturday, July 11, Mr. Sochor’s attorneys filed a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the United States Supreme Court to stay his execution and review whether Florida’s court system has made it nearly impossible for people on death row to challenge the state’s lethal injection procedure.

The petition is based on recently obtained autopsy reports from executions carried out under Florida’s current three-drug lethal injection protocol, which begins with the sedative etomidate. According to the filing, those reports consistently document evidence of flash pulmonary edema, a condition in which fluid rapidly fills the lungs and may cause the sensation of conscious air hunger before death. This, they contend, presents a substantial risk of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. 

In Mr. Sochor’s case and others, Florida courts have dismissed this argument not on the merits, but on the grounds that it could have been raised years earlier – before Florida’s current execution protocol even went into effect and the autopsies in question even existed. As a result, the filing argues, people sentenced to death have no meaningful opportunity to ask a court to decide whether Florida’s execution method violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Grace Hanna, FADP Executive Director, stated “When new evidence raises serious questions about whether Florida’s execution method is causing unnecessary suffering, the answer should never be, ‘It’s too late to ask.’ Every person deserves the protection of the Constitution, and every execution should be subject to meaningful judicial review. Our justice system should never be afraid of examining the truth.”

Prior to this, Mr. Sochor had several rounds of appeals that addressed the culpability of his brother in the crime. A brief procedural history is available on FADP’s website.

A Veteran Who Has Spent Four Decades on Death Row

Dennis Sochor served as a paratrooper in the United States Army’s 509th Airborne Infantry before his arrest. He has now spent four decades on death row. Today, he is an elderly man in poor health, whose life has largely been spent behind prison walls. 

Legal Sources 

Circuit Court (Broward County): 86015270CF10A

Florida Supreme Court: SC2026-0971

U.S. Supreme Court: 26-5061 

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