The state of Florida on Thursday executed Loran Cole, a 57-year-old Florida man who contended that lethal injection would cause him “needless pain and suffering” due to his Parkinson’s disease. The execution took place after the US Supreme Court denied a last-minute appeal to stop it.
The appeal was submitted to Justice Thomas, the circuit justice for the Eleventh Circuit, which includes Florida. He denied Cole’s appeal without signing the decision or providing an explanation, which is typical in emergency cases of this nature.
In their brief to the Supreme Court, Cole’s attorneys argued that his Parkinson’s disease symptoms would “make it impossible” for his execution to be carried out humanely. They said that “his involuntary body movements will affect the placement of the intravenous lines necessary to carry out an execution by lethal injection.”
The office of Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody responded to Cole’s application in a brief to the Supreme Court, stating:
Cole argues that this Court should stay the execution because it presents constitutional issues which this court should be free of time constraint to properly consider. He laments that the court only has several days to consider the issue. However, this supposed conundrum is one created by Cole’s own doing. Cole knew for at least seven years that he was suffering symptoms of Parkinson’s disease but delayed bringing any claim challenging lethal injection as applied to him until his death warrant was signed. Nothing prevented him from doing so.
The responding brief noted that none of the cases cited by Cole’s attorneys involved other prisoners with Parkinson’s. It also noted that Florida employs restraints during lethal injection to restrict a prisoner’s movement.
Cole’s attorneys also sought to stop the execution by highlighting the severe abuse he endured as a teenager at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna. They argued that the jury, unaware of the horrific experiences Cole faced at the state reform school, might have decided differently had they known. The attorneys referenced a new law signed by Flordia Governor Ron DeSantis that compensates some victims of abuse at Dozier, though Cole himself would not be eligible under the law.
Governor DeSantis signed a death warrant on July 29 for Cole, who had been sentenced to death for the murder of John Edwards. In 1994, Cole and his friend William Paul jumped and robbed Edwards and his sister Pam, who were camping in a national forest. John Edwards, an 18-year-old Florida State University student, suffered fatal injuries including a slashed throat and skull fractures from blunt force trauma. Cole was convicted of first-degree murder and received the death penalty. Cole and Paul also sexually assaulted Pam Edwards that evening, and Cole was convicted of two counts of rape.
Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty released a statement calling Cole’s execution by lethal injection “particularly calculated, and particularly hypocritical.” The group said, “In Florida, the governor has the sole discretion on when, whether, and for whom to set an execution … the process is shrouded in mystery and secrecy. We have no way of knowing how or why Loran was chosen, and no way of knowing who might be next.”
