Death row inmate asks US Supreme Court to stay executions due to Parkinson's disease

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (NSF) — Death row murderer Loran Cole was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Florida State Penitentiary. His lawyers have now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution because he is suffering from Parkinson's symptoms.

Attorneys filed a petition and motion with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a stay of execution after the Florida Supreme Court denied an appeal on Friday. The petition and motion, filed Sunday, argue that the case should be sent back to a lower court for an evidentiary hearing on whether lethal injections in that state would cause “unnecessary pain and suffering” due to Cole's symptoms.

“Cole now experiences tremors in both arms from his neck to his fingertips and in his legs,” the petition states. “Cole's Parkinson's symptoms make it impossible for Florida to safely and humanely carry out his execution because his involuntary body movements interfere with the placement of the intravenous lines required for a lethal injection execution.”

RELATED: Florida Supreme Court rejects execution of FSU student's killer

The Florida Supreme Court on Friday upheld the decision of a Marion County district judge who rejected such arguments.

“In sum, Cole's claims about potential venous access problems are both speculative and legally inadequate,” the Florida Supreme Court said in its opinion. “The district court properly dismissed the complaint.”

On July 29, Governor Ron DeSantis signed an execution warrant for Cole, who was sent to death row in February 1994 for the murder of Florida State University student John Edwards in the Ocala National Forest.

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

When they decided to go to a pond, Cole knocked Edwards' sister to the ground and eventually handcuffed her, court records show. Paul led the sister up a trail, and Edwards died from a slit throat and blows to the head that fractured his skull. Edwards' sister was sexually assaulted and tied to two trees the next morning before she was able to free herself. (In most cases, the News Service of Florida does not identify victims of sexual assault by name.)

Cole, 57, would be the first inmate executed in Florida since October, when Michael Duane Zack was executed by lethal injection for a 1996 murder in Escambia County.

After DeSantis signed the death warrant, Cole's lawyers argued that the execution should be stayed because of symptoms of Parkinson's disease and the abuse Cole suffered as a teenager at the notorious Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna. The lawyers said the jury that recommended a death sentence was unaware of the abuse he suffered at Dozier. In addition, the lawyers pointed to a law DeSantis signed this year to compensate some victims of abuse at Dozier, although the law would not apply to Cole.

But Marion County District Judge Robert Hodges and the Florida Supreme Court ruled against Cole. The petition and request for a stay in the U.S. Supreme Court do not focus on the Dozier matter.

The documents allege, among other things, that Cole's execution by lethal injection could violate the constitutional prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”

“When an IV line is placed, that vein is lost after each failed attempt,” the petition states. “Each attempt is painful on its own, and the pain only gets worse with each subsequent attempt to place an IV line. If the FDOC (Florida Department of Corrections) cannot find a peripheral vein in Cole's arms or legs, lethal injection protocol calls for placing a central IV line. The skills required to do this are beyond the capabilities of the average person who can place IV lines in arms or legs. The central veins are located in the groin, neck, and below the collarbone.”

In a brief filed with the Florida Supreme Court, Attorney General Ashley Moody's office disputed the Parkinson's argument, in part because Cole waited until the death warrant was signed. According to court documents, Cole has suffered from Parkinson's symptoms since 2017.

“There is no reason, either in law or in fact, that Cole should wait years to assert this claim now under a valid execution warrant,” Moody's office wrote in the brief to the state court.

The request to stay the proceedings before the US Supreme Court also raised a new question: Cole is a “necessary witness” in a murder case in Iowa. Cole is said to have testified as a “jailhouse informant” against Daniel Brian Harris in 1986 and thus contributed to Harris' conviction for premeditated murder.

The motion states that Cole recanted his statement and participated in a deposition in the Harris case in June.

“Cole's presence is necessary so that justice can be done on behalf of Daniel Harris and the people of Iowa in another jurisdiction,” the motion states.

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