Death Penalty

Loran Cole, 57, was sentenced to death in the February 1994 murder of John Edwards, who went to the Ocala National Forest to camp with his sister, a student at Eckerd College, court records show. Cole was 17 when he was sent to Dozier in 1984.

John Edwards was murdered in 1994. Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Loran Cole, who would be the first inmate executed in Florida since October. Edwards's sister was an Eckerd College student.

A 2023 law that lowered the number of jurors needed to recommend the death penalty has resulted in a "quintessential game of chance" for inmates being resentenced because of changes in the state's death-penalty process and unconstitutionally "silences Black voices," groups are arguing in what could be a pivotal Florida Supreme Court case.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to block the execution after Michael Zack III’s lawyers had argued he was a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Okeechobee County prosecutors recently filed a court notice saying they will seek a death sentence against 36-year-old Mathew Flores. He is charged with first-degree murder for the Jan. 30 slaying of 74-year-old Gary Levin.

A new law that could lead to imposing the death penalty on people who rape children under age 12 will take effect Sunday, along with other laws passed during the 2023 legislative session.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued a six-page order denying a stay of execution for Zack, who was sentenced to death in the 1996 murder of a woman in Escambia County.

Nearly five years after voters passed a constitutional amendment about victims’ rights, Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office Monday urged the Florida Supreme Court to use the measure to make it harder for Death Row inmates to get stays of execution.

With inmate Michael Duane Zack scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Oct. 3, his attorneys have gone to the Florida Supreme Court after a circuit judge refused to halt the execution.

A new state law lowering the number of jurors required to recommend death sentences has spurred a rash of litigation, triggered conflicting judicial rulings and infused an additional level of uncertainty in capital cases.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed a death warrant for Michael Duane Zack, 54, an inmate convicted in the 1996 murder of a woman he met in an Escambia County bar.

James Phillip Barnes, 61, received a lethal injection Thursday evening at Florida State Prison in Starke.