Florida set to execute three aging death row inmates this month

Florida is preparing to execute three aging death row inmates by the end of July, a series that highlights the nation's growing population of elderly prisoners on death row.

Dennis Sochor, 74, is scheduled to be executed Tuesday and would become the oldest inmate Florida has executed in its modern history. Two other prisoners scheduled to die later this month are older still. One of them, a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents in 1986, is 80 years old and would be only the second known octogenarian to be executed in the United States.

The last prisoner executed in Florida's death chamber was 74 years old, marking the oldest execution the state had carried out in modern times. The upcoming executions represent a continuation of that trend toward executing increasingly elderly inmates.

Florida has already carried out nine executions this year, making it the nation's busiest death penalty state. The three scheduled executions by month's end will add to that total within a compressed timeframe.

Sochor has been on death row since the 1980s. The lengthy period between conviction and execution reflects the extended appeals process designed to ensure constitutional protections and prevent innocent people from being executed.

The series of executions has prompted questions about the practice of administering capital punishment to inmates who may be approaching natural death. Rev. Dustin Fedd raised the question of whether executing aging prisoners represents an intentional effort to prevent natural death from allowing inmates to escape execution.