For Immediate Release

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

STARKE, Fla. — Today, We the People of the State of Florida executed James “Jim” Duckett for a crime he steadfastly maintained he did not commit. The State chose a testing process that consumed and forever destroyed the most critical piece of biological evidence in his case, then refused to test the remaining physical evidence that might have finally answered the question of his guilt or innocence. That answer is now beyond our reach. Florida must live forever with the possibility that Jim Duckett was not only the 136th person executed in the state’s modern history, but a man who should have joined the record-breaking number of people exonerated from Florida’s death row for crimes they did not commit.

At the center of this case is Teresa McAbee, an 11-year-old girl whose life should have stretched far beyond 1987. For forty years, her name has been bound to a criminal case, courtrooms, and the machinery of execution. Teresa deserved those years, and a legacy larger than the circumstances of her death. She also deserved the certainty that the person held responsible was, in fact, responsible.

For the 151 days after Gov. DeSantis first signed Jim’s death warrant, his lawyers fought day and night to keep the State from extinguishing the truth along with their client. Jim’s friends and loved ones, who supported him for decades, continued to hold out hope. Jim himself fought to stay positive, desperately wanting to believe in the integrity of the criminal justice system that he swore to protect when he was a police officer, long before he ever landed on death row. 

His lawyers secured a stay of execution and a rare victory before the Florida Supreme Court, buying precious time to obtain the underlying DNA data and pursue every remaining path towards an answer. At every turn, the State fought in the opposite direction

This case contained nearly every hallmark of a wrongful conviction – a non-unanimous jury recommendation (8-4), unreliable forensic evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, and coerced witness testimony. Since his conviction, most of the original evidence against Jim, who prosecutors claimed committed this crime while on duty, has unraveled.

The only eyewitness who claimed to have seen Teresa get into Jim’s patrol car was a pregnant teenager who had been coerced, bribed, and threatened by police to maintain that story. Conversely, there were two other witnesses who swore that they saw him driving away without Teresa in his car, but his own attorney never presented either witness to the jury. 

The other cornerstone of the State’s case was an FBI analyst who testified that a single hair found in Teresa’s clothing “almost certainly” came from Jim. Later, an extensive FBI review revealed that the same analyst routinely exaggerated or falsified positive matches in nearly every case he touched. The review also concluded that “microscopic hair comparison” is essentially “junk science” and recommended severely limiting its use. The hair in question was not suitable for DNA comparison because it did not contain a root, which is where the genetic material would be contained. The State was made aware of the issues with this analyst in 2012, but failed to disclose this to the defense until 2026 – after Gov. DeSantis had signed Jim’s death warrant.

Yet, there remained a path towards certainty.

Preserved on a microscopic slide from Teresa’s underwear were several sperm heads – fragile biological evidence that modern forensic science could finally examine using technology unavailable in the years before. Everyone agreed the evidence mattered, and that the identity of Teresa’s killer remained a relevant issue. The only question was whether the State of Florida really wanted an answer.

The defense asked to send the sample to Othram, Inc., an internationally recognized laboratory whose technology was specifically designed to recover DNA from small and degraded samples like this one. The Assistant Attorney General handling this case for the State adamantly opposed this choice. He insisted that the company was somehow “corrupted” and that the evidence must remain in Florida, successfully persuading the court to send the sample to a lab that lacked the capability to perform the necessary testing or meaningfully interpret the results.

While State lawyers were arguing in court that Othram could not be trusted with evidence that might save Jim’s life, the Acting Attorney General James Uthmeier was standing before television cameras – behind a podium emblazoned with the words “Law and Order”  – announcing a statewide partnership with that very same laboratory to solve Florida’s coldest murder cases. He boasted that Othram was “leading the nation” in advanced forensic DNA analysis. 

This hypocrisy borders on the grotesque and should alarm every single voting Floridian.

In a case where the stakes are so high, and where everyone agreed this critical evidence could resolve the question of guilt or innocence, what possible justification could the State have for refusing to use the nation’s most advanced technology?

Based on the totality of the State’s conduct since Jim’s death warrant was signed on February 27th of this year, the only logical conclusion is that this administration doesn’t care about the truth. They don’t care if they get it right or get it wrong. They don’t care about Jim Duckett, or the integrity of the criminal justice system, or that Teresa McAbee’s killer may forever remain unknown. All of this is simply more collateral damage of an amoral administration that is racing to kill as many people as possible.

Once the State successfully steered the sample to an inferior lab, the result was exactly what experts warned would happen, and what reasonable minds could believe the State intended to have happen: the testing produced no meaningful answer, and the fragile biological sample was destroyed in the process. The evidence was gone forever.

But other evidence, while less likely to lead to a quality DNA sample, still remained. Rather than promptly agreeing to subject the remaining samples from Teresa’s clothing and fingernail scrapings to advanced DNA testing, the State moved to lift the stay and urged the Governor to set a new execution date. 

This administration was all too willing to oblige, not even bothering to give the standard 30 day window to allow for the courts to review all of the pending motions. Instead, for the first time in more than 60 years, this administration chose to set a state-sanctioned double murder, adding Jim’s execution at noon on July 28th, just six hours before 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone is set to die.

There was no explanation or reason for this risky proposition, and it was seemingly made with no regard for the solemn, necessary process of the final days of the condemned. Nor with any regard for the corrections staff who, having already been forced to carry out more executions than at any time in Florida history, would now be required to kill two men on the same day. 

The death penalty is unique in its irrevocability. There are no do-overs. When the State holds the awesome power to kill, there can be zero doubt about the guilt of the person it is killing. No stone should be left unturned. And yet, there are plenty of buried stones here, and plenty of unanswered questions. 

Those who wield the State’s power claim to seek justice and champion law and order. But law without truth is merely power, and order imposed through the execution of a person whose guilt remains in doubt is a betrayal of justice. The State destroyed the evidence that might have supplied an answer, refused to examine what remained, and then used its ultimate authority to make its own failures irreversible. Their conduct and this execution reveal the sad truth that we are about as far away from justice as we could possibly be.