Florida Supreme Court halts the execution of police officer convicted of raping and murdering a girl

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — The execution of a former Florida police officer convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl was temporarily halted Thursday by the Florida Supreme Court.

The court issued a stay in execution for 68-year-old James Aren Duckett, who was scheduled to receive a three-drug injection Tuesday at Florida State Prison near Starke. Duckett was sentenced to death in 1988 after being convicted of first-degree murder and sexual battery.

As part of his appeals process, Duckett had sought DNA testing that he argued could exonerate him. A circuit court granted that request, and the testing is still pending. The Florida Supreme Court also ordered the state to address the status of the DNA testing by 5 p.m. Friday.

If the stay isn't lifted by Tuesday, it's not clear when the execution would take place, if at all.

With a record 19 executions last year, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.

According to court records, Duckett had worked as a police officer in Mascotte, a small city west of Orlando. He was on patrol the night of May 11, 1987, when 11-year-old Teresa McAbee disappeared. She was last seen getting into Duckett's patrol car at a convenience store.

McAbee's body was found in a lake the next morning less than a mile away from the store, officials said. A medical examiner determined she was sexually assaulted and then drowned. Blood and hair linked her to Duckett. Distinct tire tracks found at the lake matched the tires on Mascotte patrol cars. Duckett and McAbee’s fingerprints were found on the hood of Duckett's car.

Three teen girls testified at trial that Duckett had previously given rides to each of them and had made sexual advances.

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

FILE - Clouds hover over the entrance of the Florida State Prison in Starke, Fla., Aug. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Curt Anderson, File)

A novel by Nobel laureate Han Kang, Karen Hao's examination of artificial intelligence and OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) and a memoir by the author Arundhati Roy were among the winners Thursday of the annual National Book Critics Circle awards.

Han's "We Do Not Part,” translated by e.yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, addresses a 1948-1949 uprising on Jeju, an island south of the Korean mainland, in which thousands of people were killed.

Heather Scott Partington, who chaired the awards' fiction committee, described the novel as “a work of blinding melancholy, bleak weather, and murmuring syntax” and said it "lingers like an atmospheric and arresting dream.”

The lifetime achievement award went to author and journalist Frances FitzGerald, whose 1972 "Fire in the Lake” was an early and prescient take on the Vietnam War.

NPR and PBS were presented with the achievement award honoring institutions that have made significant contributions to book culture.

"At a time when some question the value of public, service-minded media, we salute PBS and NPR for all you have done for both book culture and American democracy,” said Jacob M. Appel, who chaired the selection process for the award.

Winners of other categories:

— Hao's “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI” won for nonfiction.

— Roy's “Mother Mary Comes to Me” won for autobiography.

— Alex Green's “A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled” won for biography.

— Kevin Young's “Night Watch” won for poetry.

— “Sad Tiger” by Neige Sinno and translated by Natasha Lehrer won the translation prize honoring both the author and translator.

The National Book Critics Circle was founded in New York in 1974 and consists of more than 850 critics and editors. Its annual awards honor the best books published in the past year in the United States.

FILE - Writer and activist Arundhati Roy participates in a protest at the press club of India in New Delhi, India, Oct. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri, File)

FILE - Nobel laureate in literature Han Kang speaks during the Nobel Banquet in City Hall in Stockholm, Dec. 10, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP, File)WLD