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topicnews · August 28, 2024

DeSantis called for sparing convicted murderer once imprisoned at Dozier School

DeSantis called for sparing convicted murderer once imprisoned at Dozier School

John F. Kennedy
| Capital Office | USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA

Opponents of the death penalty have stepped up calls on Governor Ron DeSantis to stop the execution of convicted murderer Loran Cole, scheduled for Thursday, citing his months-long incarceration in a notorious Florida reformatory in the 1980s.

Petitions bearing the signatures of more than 7,000 people were delivered to the governor’s office in the state Capitol on Monday as part of an effort to persuade DeSantis to commute Cole’s death sentence to life in prison.

Cole, now 57, was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of John Edwards, an 18-year-old Florida State University student. He was also found guilty of robbery, rape and kidnapping of Edwards’ sister, who was camping with her brother in the Ocala National Forest.

Cole’s execution would be the first in Florida in ten months. DeSantis ordered six executions in 2023, the most in the state in nearly a decade. Those six executions also took place during the period in which the governor unsuccessfully campaigned for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

His main rival, eventual Republican candidate Donald Trump, had carried out the most federal executions of civilian prisoners during his term as president since President Grover Cleveland in 1896.

History of the Dozier School, central to plea

But Cole’s time at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna plays a role in efforts to get him off death row. According to an appeal rejected last week by the state Supreme Court, Cole was brutally treated by guards there, which he says may have contributed to his murderous behavior.

In June, DeSantis signed a law that provides $20 million to victims of abuse at Dozier and another state reformatory in Okeechobee between 1940 and 1975. Cole was at Dozier in 1984 as a 17-year-old, where he was raped by a guard, beaten twice a week and had both of his legs broken during an escape attempt, according to court documents.

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“I wonder what kind of advice DeSantis is getting when he signs a compensation bill for Dozier’s survivors and then turns around and signs a death warrant for one of them,” said Abe Bonowitz, executive director and co-founder of Death Penalty Action, which has fought against the death penalty in Florida and across the country for more than 30 years.

Bonowitz said lawyers believe at least three other former Dozier School students are on Florida’s death row.

“The state of Florida is complicit in the murders they committed, and now they want to kill some and compensate others. Unbelievable,” Bonowitz said.

DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to death penalty opponents’ request for comment on the proposals.

Supreme Court rejects appeal

Cole’s attorneys had argued before state judges that his attorney failed to raise Dozier’s school history as a possible reason to avoid the death penalty in 1995. But the judges rejected his latest claim on the grounds that Dozier had been mentioned and rejected in Cole’s post-conviction appeal.

“At its core, Cole’s latest argument relating to his time at the Dozier School is just another variation of the claims he made and rejected in his first and second consecutive motions for post-conviction relief,” the court unanimously agreed.

Groups urging DeSantis to commute Cole’s death sentence to life in prison include Bonowitz’s organization, as well as Witness to Innocence, the Catholic Mobilizing Network and Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter earlier this month urging DeSantis not to execute Cole.

“Because Mr. Cole never received psychiatric and trauma treatment until he arrived on death row in his late 20s, at age 57 he is no longer the same person who committed the serious crimes for which he was convicted,” Michael Sheedy, executive director of the Florida Conference, wrote in the letter to DeSantis.

Previous reporting: Florida Governor DeSantis signs death sentence for 1994 murder of FSU student

John F. Kennedy is a reporter in the Florida Capital Bureau of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected] or on X at @JKennedyReport.

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