WORDS TO HEED: FROM OUR POST ON KEVIN COOPER'S APPLICATION FOR POST-CONVICTION DNA TESTING; CALIFORNIA: (Applicable wherever a state resists DNA testing): "Blogger/extraordinaire Jeff Gamso's blunt, unequivocal, unforgettable message to the powers that be in California: "JUST TEST THE FUCKING DNA." (Oh yes, Gamso raises, as he does in many of his posts, an important philosophical question: This post is headed: "What is truth, said jesting Pilate."...Says Gamso: "So what's the harm? What, exactly, are they scared of? Don't we want the truth?"
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STORY: "Former Florida police officer appeals to federal court for DNA testing, days before rescheduled execution," by Martin E. Comas, published by The Orlando Sentinel, on July 24, 2026. (Martin E. Comas covers Seminole County and its seven cities for the Orlando Sentinel. Martin is a University of Central Florida graduate with degrees in journalism and business administration. He is fluent in Spanish).
SUB-HEADING: "James Aren Duckett, a former police officer convicted of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in 1987, is scheduled to be put to death at Florida State Prison on March 31.)"
GIST: Attorneys for Florida death row inmate James Duckett — who is scheduled to die at noon Tuesday for the 1987 rape and drowning of an 11-year-old Lake County girl — are asking a federal court in Ocala to halt his execution and order additional DNA testing on the victim’s underwear, jeans and scrapings from her fingernails.
They say the new DNA testing, along with an evidentiary hearing on the results, would be an opportunity to know whether Duckett really killed the Mascotte girl on a spring night 39 years ago.
“Mr. Duckett’s conviction is based entirely on circumstantial evidence,” said Brittney Lacy, one of Duckett’s three attorneys, in a brief filed with the U.S. District Court. No physical evidence links Duckett to Teresa McAbee’s murder, she added.
Duckett, 68, has always maintained his innocence.
His attorneys are requesting that the federal court order the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and state prosecutors to release the evidence so that it can be tested and compared to Duckett’s DNA.
Duckett’s legal team filed a similar appeal to the Florida Supreme Court this week, including requesting a halt to his execution.
But the Florida Supreme Court on Friday morning denied Duckett’s motion for a stay of execution, and called his appeal for more DNA testing “meritless.”
Florida Attorney General’s Office said Teresa’s family had waited long enough for Duckett’s execution. He has had numerous appeals since his conviction.
“The people of Florida, as well as the surviving victims, deserve better than the excessive delays that now typically occur in capital cases,” according to the filing signed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. “Last minute stays of execution should be the extreme exception, not the norm.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis first signed Duckett’s death warrant on Feb. 27. But the state 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. Such testing was not available at the time of his trial.
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.
An evidentiary hearing requested by Duckett’s attorneys to probe the testing and results was denied by a Circuit Court judge in Lake County, who is overseeing the case.
Duckett’s attorneys now say that additional testing of Teresa’s underwear, jeans, vaginal smears and scrapings from under her fingernails could be tested for DNA and then compared to Duckett. Those items are being held by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
The federal court said it will consider Duckett’s request for additional testing, even as the Florida’s top court said that it would not.
“Duckett was aware of the items he now wants tested when he filed his prior motion for DNA testing on March 5,2026 — more than four months ago,” according the state Supreme Court ruling. “He has failed to identify any valid reason he could not have requested this testing sooner.”
Just after 9 p.m. on May 11, 1987, Teresa asked her single mom if she could walk to a nearby convenience store on State Road 50 — about a block away from her home, inside a converted garage — 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.
Duckett, who was living in the Sumter County community of Croom-A-Coochee, was indicted by a grand jury more than five months later. He turned himself in to the Lake County Jail soon after.
“I think we’ve got a good case,” then Lake Sheriff Noel Griffin Jr. said at the time. “We wanted to be careful and do it right. We didn’t want to make mistakes, and you just don’t solve these things overnight.”
Investigators discovered Teresa’s finger and palm prints, along with Duckett’s, on the hood of his patrol car.
Duckett — who was the only officer on duty that night in the small town — interviewed Teresa’s mother at the police station and later at her home that night after she reported her daughter missing around 11 p.m. Duckett printed up posters, and said he looked for her at the lake where her body was found. Investigators presented as evidence the unique tire imprints from Duckett’s patrol car on the dirt road leading to the lake.
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 at the Lake County Jail after she was arrested for a probation violation and wanted to avoid more jail time.
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.
Following the DNA testing done this spring, DeSantis re-issued a death warrant on July 15, days after the state supreme court lifted its stay.
Duckett’s attorneys say that the public is not harmed in waiting for a new round of DNA tests to determine with near finality if he is the killer.
“Mr. Duckett has explained that he wants nothing more than to have the evidence properly examined,” according to the federal court filing by his attorneys.
If Duckett’s execution by lethal injection is carried out Tuesday, it would be the first time in 62 years that two Florida inmates were put to death on the same day.
The other execution is scheduled that day is for Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, who was sentenced to death in 1987 for the murders of his former girlfriend’s parents in Pasco County.
In a separate court filing, Duckett and Occhicone on Thursday asked a federal court in Tallahassee to halt Tuesday’s execution, arguing the state’s unprecedented plans to execute both inmates on the same day violates several of their Constitutional rights, including a ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The lawsuit also argues that two executions in one day puts a tremendous amount of stress on prison officials because of the large amount of planning and procedures to avoid a botched execution.
“The inherent difficulties and concerns arising from the practice [of multiple executions in one day] has prompted several states to adopt rules expressly prohibiting it,” the lawsuit states. The state of Missouri, for example, allows only one execution per month.
In addition, executions in Florida are typically conducted at 6 p.m., allowing the inmate to meet with his family that morning. However, because Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon, his final visit with his family would be between 9 a.m. and noon on Monday, more than 24 hours before his execution."
GIST: Attorneys for Florida death row inmate James Duckett — who is scheduled to die at noon Tuesday for the 1987 rape and drowning of an 11-year-old Lake County girl — are asking a federal court in Ocala to halt his execution and order additional DNA testing on the victim’s underwear, jeans and scrapings from her fingernails.
They say the new DNA testing, along with an evidentiary hearing on the results, would be an opportunity to know whether Duckett really killed the Mascotte girl on a spring night 39 years ago.
“Mr. Duckett’s conviction is based entirely on circumstantial evidence,” said Brittney Lacy, one of Duckett’s three attorneys, in a brief filed with the U.S. District Court. No physical evidence links Duckett to Teresa McAbee’s murder, she added.
Duckett, 68, has always maintained his innocence.
His attorneys are requesting that the federal court order the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and state prosecutors to release the evidence so that it can be tested and compared to Duckett’s DNA.
Duckett’s legal team filed a similar appeal to the Florida Supreme Court this week, including requesting a halt to his execution.
But the Florida Supreme Court on Friday morning denied Duckett’s motion for a stay of execution, and called his appeal for more DNA testing “meritless.”
Florida Attorney General’s Office said Teresa’s family had waited long enough for Duckett’s execution. He has had numerous appeals since his conviction.
“The people of Florida, as well as the surviving victims, deserve better than the excessive delays that now typically occur in capital cases,” according to the filing signed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. “Last minute stays of execution should be the extreme exception, not the norm.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis first signed Duckett’s death warrant on Feb. 27. But the state 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. Such testing was not available at the time of his trial.
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.
An evidentiary hearing requested by Duckett’s attorneys to probe the testing and results was denied by a Circuit Court judge in Lake County, who is overseeing the case.
Duckett’s attorneys now say that additional testing of Teresa’s underwear, jeans, vaginal smears and scrapings from under her fingernails could be tested for DNA and then compared to Duckett. Those items are being held by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
The federal court said it will consider Duckett’s request for additional testing, even as the Florida’s top court said that it would not.
“Duckett was aware of the items he now wants tested when he filed his prior motion for DNA testing on March 5,2026 — more than four months ago,” according the state Supreme Court ruling. “He has failed to identify any valid reason he could not have requested this testing sooner.”
Just after 9 p.m. on May 11, 1987, Teresa asked her single mom if she could walk to a nearby convenience store on State Road 50 — about a block away from her home, inside a converted garage — 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.
Duckett, who was living in the Sumter County community of Croom-A-Coochee, was indicted by a grand jury more than five months later. He turned himself in to the Lake County Jail soon after.
“I think we’ve got a good case,” then Lake Sheriff Noel Griffin Jr. said at the time. “We wanted to be careful and do it right. We didn’t want to make mistakes, and you just don’t solve these things overnight.”
Investigators discovered Teresa’s finger and palm prints, along with Duckett’s, on the hood of his patrol car.
Duckett — who was the only officer on duty that night in the small town — interviewed Teresa’s mother at the police station and later at her home that night after she reported her daughter missing around 11 p.m. Duckett printed up posters, and said he looked for her at the lake where her body was found. Investigators presented as evidence the unique tire imprints from Duckett’s patrol car on the dirt road leading to the lake.
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 at the Lake County Jail after she was arrested for a probation violation and wanted to avoid more jail time.
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.
Following the DNA testing done this spring, DeSantis re-issued a death warrant on July 15, days after the state supreme court lifted its stay.
Duckett’s attorneys say that the public is not harmed in waiting for a new round of DNA tests to determine with near finality if he is the killer.
“Mr. Duckett has explained that he wants nothing more than to have the evidence properly examined,” according to the federal court filing by his attorneys.
If Duckett’s execution by lethal injection is carried out Tuesday, it would be the first time in 62 years that two Florida inmates were put to death on the same day.
The other execution is scheduled that day is for Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, who was sentenced to death in 1987 for the murders of his former girlfriend’s parents in Pasco County.
In a separate court filing, Duckett and Occhicone on Thursday asked a federal court in Tallahassee to halt Tuesday’s execution, arguing the state’s unprecedented plans to execute both inmates on the same day violates several of their Constitutional rights, including a ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The lawsuit also argues that two executions in one day puts a tremendous amount of stress on prison officials because of the large amount of planning and procedures to avoid a botched execution.
“The inherent difficulties and concerns arising from the practice [of multiple executions in one day] has prompted several states to adopt rules expressly prohibiting it,” the lawsuit states. The state of Missouri, for example, allows only one execution per month.
In addition, executions in Florida are typically conducted at 6 p.m., allowing the inmate to meet with his family that morning. However, because Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon, his final visit with his family would be between 9 a.m. and noon on Monday, more than 24 hours before his execution."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
