US Supreme Court rejects bid to halt Ocala National Forest killer’s execution

RAIFORD, Fla. (WCJB/NSF) – The U.S. Supreme Court declined Thursday morning to stay the scheduled 6 p.m. execution of Loran Cole, who was sent to death row in the 1994 slaying of Florida State University student John Edwards, in the Ocala National Forest.

The Supreme Court refused to accept an appeal or grant a stay of execution. A one-paragraph decision did not explain the court’s reasoning.

Cole’s lawyers went to the Supreme Court on Sunday after state appeals failed. They primarily argued that the case should be sent back to a lower court for an evidentiary hearing on whether the state’s lethal injection procedures would cause “unnecessary pain and suffering” because of Cole’s symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

“Cole is now experiencing tremors in both arms from the neck to the fingertips and in the feet,” said a petition to the Supreme Court. “Cole Parkinson’s symptoms will make it impossible for Florida to carry out his execution in a safe and humane manner because his involuntary body movements will affect the placement of the intravenous lines needed to carry out an execution by lethal injection.”

But Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office urged the justices to reject the argument, in part because Cole has had Parkinson’s symptoms since at least 2017. Cole’s lawyers argued that executing him by lethal injection could violate the constitutional ban on cruel punishments and unusual.

“Cole argues that this (Supreme) Court should stay enforcement because it presents constitutional issues that this court should be free of time constraints to properly consider,” wrote lawyers in Moody’s office. “He laments that the court only has a few days to consider the matter. However, this supposed conundrum is one of Cole’s own doing. Cole had known for at least seven years that he was suffering from symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, but delayed filing any challenge to the lethal injection as administered to him until after his death warrant was signed. Nothing stopped him from doing that.”

Several groups opposed to the death penalty have planned a vigil outside Raiford State Prison.

“Florida has a long history,” said Maria Deliberato, a member of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “We have the most waivers of any other state in the nation. We have the lowest threshold for imposing the death penalty. So I think people are listening. I think it’s difficult because it’s an emotional issue.”

RELATED: Florida Supreme Court refuses to block execution of FSU student killer

The Florida Supreme Court last week upheld a Marion County circuit judge’s decision that rejected Cole’s arguments.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on July 29 signed a death warrant for Cole, 57, who will be the first inmate executed at a Florida state prison since October, when Michael Duane Zack was put to death by lethal injection for a murder since 1996 in Escambia County.

Edwards went to the national forest to camp with his sister, a student at Eckerd College. Cole and another man, William Paul, joined the brother and sister at their campsite.

After they decided to go to a pond, Cole tackled Edwards’ sister to the ground and eventually handcuffed her, according to court records. Paul took the sister on a trail and Edwards died from a cut to her throat and blows to the head that fractured her skull. Edwards’ sister was sexually assaulted and tied to two trees the next morning before breaking free. (In most cases, the Florida News Service does not identify sexual assault victims by name.)

In addition to the issue of Parkinson’s disease, Cole’s lawyers argued in state courts that the execution should be stayed because of the abuse he suffered as a teenager at the notorious Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna. Lawyers said the jury that recommended the death sentence did not know about the abuse he suffered at the state reform school. The lawyers also pointed to a law DeSantis signed this year to compensate some victims of abuse at Dozier, though the law would not apply to Cole.

But Marion County Circuit Judge Robert Hodges and the Florida Supreme Court refused to block the execution.

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