The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals from Dennis Michael Sochor, convicted of strangling 18-year-old Patricia Gifford in 1981. Barring a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, Sochor, 74, is scheduled to be put to death on Tuesday, July 14.
If it goes as planned, Sochor will become the oldest inmate Florida has executed. Dennis Ray Spencer, executed on June 25, was born just under two weeks before Sochor in 1952, but by Tuesday Sochor will have lived 19 days longer. However, Florida will break the record again on July 18 if the execution for 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone happens as scheduled. Occhicone was convicted of killing his former girlfriend’s parents in 1986.
Sochor confessed to raping and strangling Gifford and disposing of her body in the Everglades after she left a bar with Sochor and his brother to get breakfast, court records show.
If executed, Sochor would be the 10th person put to death by the state this year under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ newly accelerated death warrant schedule. Of the 37 executions under DeSantis, 28 have happened in the last 17 months.
Unlike recent inmate appeals that questioned if Florida was sticking to its lethal injection policy, Sochor’s appeals referenced autopsy records for 33 executed inmates that showed each one suffered flash pulmonary edema, which causes a feeling like drowning. His attorneys argued that the initial painkiller did not last long enough to prevent the condemned prisoners from feeling the effects before dying.
Sochor has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution and review whether Florida’s court system has made it nearly impossible for people on death row to challenge the state’s potentially unconstitutionally torturous lethal injection procedure.
According to his spiritual advisor, anti-death-penalty activist Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, Sochor has asked DeSantis to attend his execution.
When is Dennis Michael Sochor scheduled to be executed in Florida?
Barring a stay, Sochor is scheduled to die by lethal injection starting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14, at Florida State Prison in Raiford, about 40 miles west of Jacksonville.
That’s about three weeks after Spencer’s execution, and two weeks before Occhicone.
What did Dennis Michael Sochor do?
Sochor and his brother, Gary, were at a New Year’s party at the Banana Boat Lounge near Fort Lauderdale when they met Gifford and a friend. Sochor was on probation at the time for the 1980 rape of a 19-year-old Oakland Park woman, the SunSentinel reported in 1987, and was wanted for a rape in Michigan.
After Gifford’s friend fell asleep in her car around 2 a.m., Gifford left with the brothers in Dennis Sochor’s work truck to get breakfast, court records show.
According to Gary Sochor’s testimony, Dennis drove to a secluded spot and took Gifford out of the car. Gary Sochor said he heard her screaming and initially tried to stop his brother but backed off. Sochor climbed back in the truck some time later and drove home with Gary Sochor, who said he found women’s clothing in the truck the next morning.
Dennis Sochor’s confession was different; he told police he choked her when she refused him and then drove her body to a secluded place without Gary.
Sochor fled after he was identified from a picture taken at the party. His employer’s truck was later found in Tampa, but Sochor wasn’t caught until he was arrested in Georgia for a DUI more than five years later. He confessed to the Michigan rape and to raping and murdering Gifford.
Sochor received a death sentence for the murder, a 22-year prison sentence for the kidnapping, a life sentence for the 1980 rape, and a five-year sentence for stealing his employer’s truck.
He was resentenced to death in 1993 after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated his sentence, and multiple appeals over the years alleging that the state withheld evidence that his brother Gary was a participant in the crime and given immunity to testify have failed.
Gifford’s body was never found.
Is Florida’s lethal injection policy humane?
In his appeals, Sochor’s attorneys argued that the state failed to disclose evidence concerning his brother’s involvement, and that Florida’s lethal injection policy violates the Eighth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as recently discovered inmate autopsies seemed to reveal that the drugs used caused “severe air hunger” similar to a sensation of drowning, which falls under “cruel and unusual punishment.” Sochor offered death by firing squad instead as preferable.
A circuit court denied both claims, and Sochor appealed to the state Supreme Court on just the execution method. It was denied, with the court saying it was speculative and, since the autopsies were available years earlier, the time to use them to challenge the execution protocol had passed.
Florida’s execution policies have come under fire since 2025 when defense attorneys and anti-death-penalty groups accused the Florida Department of Corrections of allegedly using expired execution drugs, the wrong drugs, or insufficient amounts, and unnecessarily subjecting the inmates to cruel and unusual punishment during their executions.
Who is the oldest inmate on Florida’s death row?
The oldest person on Florida’s death row is Daniel Burns, 81, convicted in 1988 for the shooting death of Florida Highway Patrol trooper Jeffrey Dale Young. But he’s only the oldest by a few months.
Other elderly condemned inmates born the same year (1945) include James Rose, Harry Phillips, William Ziegler, Henry Sireci, and Occhicone.
There are currently 242 inmates on Florida’s death row, the second highest in the nation after California’s 580.
Before 1964, when the death penalty was temporarily paused in Florida, the oldest man executed was 72-year-old Charlie R. Gifford, executed in 1951, barely a year after murdering Florida legislator Charles Schuh in his St. Petersburg office the year before. He was 71 when he committed the crime.
C. A. Bridges is a journalist for the USA TODAY Network-Florida’s service journalism Connect team. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY.
(This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.)
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida set to execute Dennis Sochor, 74. Schedule, what to know
Reporting by C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida | USA TODAY Network
