Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office has urged the Florida Supreme Court to reject efforts to prevent the scheduled Aug. 29 execution of Death Row inmate Loran Cole, disputing arguments related to abuse Cole suffered as a teen and his symptoms from Parkinson’s disease.
Lawyers in Moody’s office Thursday evening filed documents that said the Supreme Court should turn down a Cole appeal and a motion to stay the execution. Gov. Ron DeSantis last month signed a death warrant for Cole, who was convicted in the 1994 murder of a Florida State University student in the Ocala National Forest.
Part of Cole’s appeal focuses on abuse he suffered as a teen in 1984 at the state’s notorious Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna. Cole’s attorneys said the jury that recommended a death sentence did not know about the abuse he suffered at Dozier. Also, the attorneys have pointed to a law that DeSantis signed this year to compensate some victims of abuse at Dozier, though the law would not apply to Cole.
“Cole’s jury was not told about the compelling mitigation that Cole was a student at Dozier, where he experienced rape and other horrific methods of abuse,” the inmate’s attorneys wrote in a brief filed Tuesday. “If Cole’s jury had known about the severe abuse … at Dozier, and Florida’s willingness to acknowledge the severe problems at Dozier to the extent that designated victims are entitled to reparations, there is a reasonable probability the newly discovered evidence would yield a less severe sentence. There is a reasonable probability a jury presented with the newly discovered information would recommend a sentence of life for Cole.”
But Moody’s office Thursday said Cole had unsuccessfully raised the Dozier abuse issue in previous appeals and that the law to compensate victims does not constitute “newly discovered evidence.”
“While he contends that his present claim is based on a new law signed by Governor DeSantis on June 21, 2024, the Dozier bill is merely window dressing for Cole to once again argue that he was denied a fair penalty phase because no mitigation was presented about his alleged mistreatment while attending Dozier,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Timothy Freeland and Assistant Attorney General Rick Buchwalter wrote. “This argument is hardly new.”
Also, Cole’s attorneys contend that the Supreme Court should require a Marion County circuit judge to hold an evidentiary hearing about whether the state's lethal-injection procedures would cause "needless pain and suffering" because of Cole's symptoms from Parkinson’s disease. A brief filed Tuesday said Cole, who has had Parkinson’s symptoms since 2017, “experiences shaking in both of his arms from his neck to his fingertips and in his legs.”
“Cole’s Parkinson’s symptoms will make it impossible for Florida to safely and humanely carry out his execution because his involuntary body movements will affect the placement of the intravenous lines necessary to carry out an execution by lethal injection,” the brief said.
But Moody’s office said the Supreme Court should reject the argument, in part because Cole waited to raise it until after the death warrant was signed.
“Cole has long known of his claimed symptoms of Parkinson’s disease,” the state’s attorneys wrote. “Cole’s motion (for a stay) acknowledged this fact and cited a 2017 request for services for alleged symptoms of Parkinson’s. There is no reason in law or fact for Cole to wait years to raise this claim now under an active death warrant.”
“If Cole’s jury had known about the severe abuse … at Dozier, and Florida’s willingness to acknowledge the severe problems at Dozier to the extent that designated victims are entitled to reparations, there is a reasonable probability the newly discovered evidence would yield a less severe sentence. There is a reasonable probability a jury presented with the newly discovered information would recommend a sentence of life for Cole.”Attorneys for Loran Cole
Cole, 57, was sent to Death Row in the February 1994 murder of Florida State University student John Edwards, who went to the Ocala National Forest to camp with his sister, a student at Eckerd College, court records show.
Cole and another man, William Paul, joined the brother and sister at their campsite. After they decided to walk to a pond, Cole knocked Edwards’ sister to the ground and ultimately handcuffed her, the records said. Paul took the sister up a trail, and Edwards died from a slashed throat and blows to the head that fractured his skull, according to the court records. Edwards’ sister was sexually assaulted and was tied to two trees the next morning before freeing herself. (In most cases, The News Service of Florida does not identify sexual-assault victims by name.)
The death warrant, which DeSantis signed July 29, touched off a flurry of legal activity, with Marion County Circuit Judge Robert Hodges last week issuing a ruling that allowed the planned execution to move forward. Hodges rejected the arguments about abuse at the Dozier school and Parkinson’s disease. Cole’s attorneys then went to the Supreme Court.
Cole would be the first inmate executed in Florida since October, when Michael Duane Zack was put to death by lethal injection for a 1996 murder in Escambia County.
