74-year-old Florida prisoner set to be oldest executed inmate in states modern history

MIAMI — Florida was again preparing Tuesday to execute one of its oldest death row prisoners in history, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who is one of three older inmates set to die in the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state.Dennis Sochor, who has been on death row since the 1980s, would become the oldest inmate Florida has executed in history — at least for now.Later this month, Florida is also set to execute an 80-year-old prisoner who would be the state’s first octogenarian to receive the death penalty.The executions highlight the nation’s aging death row population and the busy death row chamber in Florida, which has already carried out nine executions this year, more than every other state combined.Sochor is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m.

at Florida State Prison near Starke.He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan.1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.Just weeks earlier, Florida executed another 74-year-old inmate, Dusty Ray Spencer, over the killing of his estranged wife.

He is currently the oldest inmate to ever die by lethal injection in Florida, and Sochor will be exactly one week older if Tuesday’s execution is carried out as scheduled.It’s unclear why Florida set the executions for the three prisoners consecutively.Maria DeLiberato, legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, noted that in Florida, the governor has practically sole discretion when it comes to the scheduling of executions.In many other death penalty states, the scheduling is up to the courts.The office of Florida Gov.

Ron DeSantis, a Republican, did not respond to an email seeking comment about the state’s recent executions.According to court records, 18-year-old Patricia Gifford was celebrating the upcoming New Year with a friend at a Fort Lauderdale area bar when they met Sochor and his brother.The four spent several hours talking, but after the friend beca...