SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 14 – Dennis Sochor
was executed on July 14 in Florida. He was 74. He
apologized to his victim's family, saying he was "deeply
sorry." The lethal drugs began flowing at 6.03pm.
On July 10, his spiritual advisor
Jeff Hood held a press conference. Inner City Press asked
Hood and his co-presenter about the Federal death penalty,
including the capital case of USA v. DaShawn McBean aka
Jeezy Mulla in the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of New York.
The reply was that no Federal
execution is near - except, perhaps, three military death
penalty cases for which the facilities in Terre Haute in
Indiana are being vetted.
Inner City Press checked. Four former
soldiers sit on the military's death row at the U.S.
Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Nidal
Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter of 2009; Ronald Gray,
convicted in 1988 of rapes and murders at Fort Bragg;
Hasan Akbar, who grenaded and shot his own unit in Kuwait
in 2003; and Timothy Hennis, convicted by court-martial in
2010 of a 1985 triple murder.
In February 2026 the Army issued an
internal plan — "Operation Resolute Justice" — directing
coordination with the Bureau of Prisons to transfer the
condemned from Leavenworth to the federal death chamber at
Terre Haute, witness viewing station included. The Justice
Department in April re-adopted its lethal injection
protocol and added the firing squad. In May, the Secretary
of Defense traveled to Fort Campbell to award Purple
Hearts to nine soldiers wounded in Akbar's attack — a
ceremony widely read as a signal. No American service
member has been executed since Private John Bennett was
hanged at Fort Leavenworth on April 13, 1961.
So Inner City Press filed Freedom of
Information Act requests with both the Department of the
Army and the Bureau of Prisons: for Operation Resolute
Justice in full; the Army-BOP transfer agreements and the
Terre Haute site vetting the press conference alluded to;
the protocol that would be used; the drills conducted and
what they cost; and the communications about presidential
approval. Fee waivers and expedited processing were
requested — because on the ordinary FOIA timetable, these
records would arrive only after the first military
execution in sixty-five years may already have been
carried out. Whatever one's view of these four men or
their crimes, the public is entitled to see the plan
before it is used
So far Inner City Press has received:
"The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), FOIA/PA Section has
received your email and will respond to you as quickly as
possible;" and "Your inquiry has been received by the US
Army Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office" - watch
this site.
At the state level, a quick check found 10
more executions, beyond Sochor's, scheduled in the US in
the rest of 2026:
July 28
FL Dominick Anthony Occhicone, Jr.
August 13 TN Anthony
Darrell Dugard Hines
August 13 OK Carlos
Cuesta-Rodriguez
August 13 AL Jeremy
Williams
September 16 TX
LeJames Norman
September 23 TX
Ker’Sean Olajuwa Ramey
September 30 TN
Christa Pike
October 7 TX Jamaal
Howard
November 12 TX John
Rubio
December 3 TN Gary
Wayne Sutton
So eleven executions in five US states.
Texas with four nosing out Tennessee with three each. Long
ago, Inner City Press went to Huntsville, Texas and met
with death row inmate - and writer - Robert West, who was
subsequently executed. RIP.
Looking ahead to 2027, the only state with
dates of death scheduled is Ohio.
Jeff Hood is profiled in a short
documentary by Rolling Stone. In it, a family member of
Emanuel Littlejohn, after his execution by Oklahoma, tells
Governor Stitt to "f*ck yourself," and that the Governor,
unlike Littlejohn, will not be in glory or heaven. The
request in Florida is that the decisionmaker on the
execution actually attend. Watch this site.
