A federal judge in Jacksonville today denied a last-minute appeal by death row inmate James Duckett to halt his execution so that several items of clothing and scrapings from under the victim’s fingernails can be tested for DNA.
Duckett, a former Mascotte police officer, is scheduled to be put to death at noon Tuesday for the 1987 rape and drowning of Teresa McAbee, an 11-year-old girl.
His attorneys are now awaiting a final decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on an appeal filed late last week for a stay of execution. That order would be issued by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who is designated to handle such appeals.
Duckett’s execution by lethal injection is scheduled on the same day as convicted killer Dominick Occhicone, whose execution is set for 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Raiford. If both are carried out, it will be the first time since 1964 that Florida executed two death row inmates on the same day.
Represenatives from several national anti-death penality organizations plan to hold vigils on Tuesday — including in Tallahassee, Raiford, and in Lake and Pasco counties — to protest the unprecedented two executions in one day. The gatherings will include prayers and bell tollings.
In Lake County, a protest vigil is planned for 11 a.m. Tuesday in front of the Lake County Courthouse, 550 W. Main St., Tavares.
In their appeal to a federal court in Ocala, Duckett’s attorneys say that new DNA testing of Teresa’s jeans, underwear, vaginal swabs and scrapings from under her fingernails would help determine whether Duckett, now 68, killed the middle-school Lake County girl on a spring night nearly 40 years ago. He has long insisted he is innocent.
Duckett asked the federal court to compel the Florida Attorney General’s Office, Lake County Sheriff’s Office, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to release those items stored in an evidence room. Otherwise, Duckett’s Constitutional rights of due process and access to the courts would be violated, his attorneys say.
But federal Judge Jordan E. Pratt in Jacksonville denied Duckett’s request to stay his execution and dismissed the arguments that his rights were being violated by not releasing the evidence for testing.
In his order, Pratt pointed out that in 2003 an analyst for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement “concluded that no DNA profile could be obtained” from those articles of clothing.
“Analysis of the fingernail scrapings yielded no probative results,” Pratt said in his order.
Pratt added that the U.S. Supreme Court would have jurisdiction on whether Duckett’s Constitutional rights are being violated.
Pratt was appointed to the federal bench in 2025 by President Donald Trump. He previously served as a judge on the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal.
The Florida Supreme Court has also denied Duckett’s request last week to halt his execution and called his appeal for more DNA testing as “meritless.”
The Florida Attorney General’s Office said Teresa’s family had waited long enough for Duckett’s execution. And he has had numerous appeals since his conviction and sentencing in 1988.
Gov. Ron DeSantis first signed Duckett’s death warrant on Feb. 27. But the Florida Supreme Court stayed the execution on March 26, just days before he was first scheduled to be put to death, to allow an initial round of DNA testing and analysis requested by his attorneys.
Those tests on semen and hair samples taken from Teresa’s underwear did not show with “a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that James Duckett either is or is not a contributor to the evidentiary DNA mixture,” according to a report by Dr. David Mittleman of Othram Inc, a private lab that conducted the testing.
DeSantis signed a new death warrant on July 15 after the state supreme court lifted its stay.
Just after 9 p.m. on May 11, 1987, Teresa asked her mom if she could walk to a nearby convenience store on State Road 50 — about a block away from her home — to get a pencil to finish her homework, according to trial testimony.
Duckett — who was sitting in his patrol car across the street running radar — saw Teresa walk out of the store with three boys, including one who was 13 years old. The two then walked behind a dumpster at the side of the store.
Duckett pulled into the parking lot and called the two over to his patrol car to warn them about a city curfew. The boy’s uncle walked over from a nearby laundromat to take the boy home.
At the trial, a woman testified that she witnessed Teresa get into the patrol car with Duckett and they drove away. But the woman later recanted her story and said she lied to investigators after she was arrested for a probation violation.
Other witnesses testified they saw Teresa walk around the store alone and back home on Sunset Avenue.
Her body was found the next morning floating near the shore of a small lake less than a mile away. She had been raped and drowned. Marks on her neck showed she had been strangled.
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