TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man scheduled to be executed Thursday is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his execution so his appeal against Florida’s lethal injection regime can be heard.
Loran Cole, 57, is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Florida State Penitentiary after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant in July. Cole was found guilty of kidnapping adult siblings camping in the Ocala National Forest in 1994. He raped the sister and murdered the brother.
On Monday, Cole filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a stay of execution, arguing that his challenge to lethal injections in his state deserves to be heard. Cole argued that administering the cocktail of drugs from Florida would “most likely cause him unnecessary pain and suffering” due to symptoms of his Parkinson’s disease.
“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 interfere with the placement of the intravenous lines necessary for an execution by lethal injection,” his lawyers argued in court filings.
Many death penalty cases in Florida are not made public. Botched executions in other states have led to increased criticism of the death penalty and the secrecy surrounding it, as authorities struggle to obtain the necessary drug cocktails and the staff to administer them.
In their filing, Cole’s lawyers point out that other death row inmates have been granted similar hearings to consider how their medical conditions might affect their execution. Cole’s legal team claims that the denial of a hearing violates his rights to a fair trial and equal treatment under the 14th Amendment.
On August 23, the Florida Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Cole. Cole had also argued that his execution should be prevented because he had been mistreated in a state reformatory where boys were beaten, raped and killed for decades.
___ Kate Payne is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.
