Florida Is Set to Execute the Oldest Inmate in Its History

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, reports the AP. 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 6pm 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 did not respond to an email seeking comment. Last week, the state Supreme Court denied Sochor's appeals. His attorneys had argued that the state violated his right to a fair trial and claimed that the execution drugs wouldn't effectively keep Sochor sedated. A final appeal is still pending before the US Supreme Court.

According to Florida Department of Corrections records, the oldest inmates previously executed by the state were both 72: Samuel Lee Smithers on Oct. 14, 2025, for the 1996 killings of two women, and R. Charlie Gifford on Feb. 21, 1951, for the 1950 shooting of a state representative, Charles Schuh Jr. Nationwide, the oldest US inmate executed in modern times was Walter Leroy Moody Jr., 83. He was put to death in Alabama in 2018 for a wave of Southern mail bombs that killed a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney in 1989. A total of 16 executions have been carried out this year in the US, with Florida, so far, carrying out more than all other states combined.