Florida’s Governor DeSantis Schedules First Execution of 2024 for Dozier Reform School Survivor After 10-Month Execution Hiatus

On July 29, 2024, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the state’s first execution warrant of 2024, scheduling an execution date for Loran Cole (pictured) in just thirty days, on August 29, 2024. Mr. Cole’s execution warrant comes nearly ten months after Florida’s last execution, which was the last of the state’s six executions carried out in 2023. Mr. Cole was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of a Florida State University student in Marion County, Florida. Following the issuance of the execution warrant, attorneys for Mr. Cole filed a motion asking a judge to vacate his death sentence, arguing that Florida is “complicit in the horrific and tragic” abuse that Mr. Cole experienced after being sent to the “notorious” Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. In 1984, at age 17, Mr. Cole was sent to Dozier, where he lived through “torturous treatment.” Dozier was a reform school operated by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice at the time of its closure in 2011. A high number of unmarked graves on the property evidenced the harsh conditions, violence, and brutal treatment of juveniles who were sent there. Former students have shared with Florida lawmakers details of the abuse and torture they suffered at the hands of Dozier staff. 

In the motion filed by Mr. Cole’s attorneys, they write that “[Mr.] Cole is pleading for a life sentence, because of what Florida employees did to him while he was at Dozier.” They added that “considering how Florida has admitted to oppressing vulnerable youth at Dozier, the fact that [Mr.] Cole was a student there, let alone suffered horrific abuse while confined, changes the perception and impact of the mitigation his jury was presented.” As explained in filings submitted to the court, Mr. Cole’s suppressed memory of the abuse he suffered while at Dozier reemerged after watching a documentary detailing the abuse others suffered at Dozier. Mr. Cole claims that while at Dozier, he was raped by a guard, beaten twice a week, and had both of his legs broken after he tried to escape Dozier during his six-month stay.

Gov. DeSantis signed Mr. Cole’s execution warrant just a month after signing a bill that sets aside $20 million to compensate individuals who were sent to Dozier and another reform school between 1940 and 1975 “who were subjected to mental, physical or sexual abuse perpetrated by school personnel.” While Mr. Cole is not eligible for this compensation, his attorneys allege that if his “jury had known about the severe abuse that happened at Dozier, and Florida’s willingness to acknowledge the severe problems at Dozier to the extent that designated victims are entitled to reparations, there is a reasonable probability the newly discovered evidence would yield a less severe sentence.” Attorneys for the state allege that Mr. Cole’s allegations of abuse “are hardly new” and that “there is no reason to believe that this evidence of his treatment at Dozier would likely lead to a different result in [Mr.] Cole’s sentence.”

Maria DeLiberato, the Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told The News Service of Florida that “in passing the compensation bill for Dozier survivors, the state of Florida recognized its direct responsibility for the profound and lifelong impact of horrific torture and abuse those men suffered there. For the state of Florida to turn around less than a month later and say they are justified in killing one of those survivors is unconscionable.” According to Melanie Kalmanson, an attorney and author of the “Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty,” Mr. Cole is one of seven former Dozier students who have been sentenced to death in Florida. Mr. Cole’s motion for a vacation of his sentence was denied, but his attorneys have filed an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. In this appeal, attorneys for Mr. Cole also argue that the court should grant a stay of execution in order to hold an evidentiary hearing to discuss the “needless pain and suffering” Mr. Cole would experience during a lethal injection execution because of symptoms from his Parkinson’s disease. According to the motion, “[Mr.] 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 affect the placement of intravenous lines necessary to carry out an execution by lethal injection.”

Gov. DeSantis, who was running for the Republican presidential nominee in 2023, did not sign any execution warrants after he dropped out of the presidential race, leading some to believe he used the 2023 executions to bolster his “tough on crime” platform. Florida governors are given complete discretion when it comes to identifying prisoners for whom execution dates will be set, unlike some other states, which require courts to review and approve requests from officials for execution warrants. In addition to signing the 2023 execution warrants, Gov. DeSantis urged the Florida Legislature to pass a law removing the unanimity requirement for capital juries to sentence someone to death. After Gov. DeSantis signed this law in April 2023, a death sentence requires a vote of only 8 jurors. Along with the lowered threshold, Gov. DeSantis backed and signed a bill allowing the death penalty for the sexual battery of a child under the age of 12, directly challenging the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), which held that a death sentence for a crime that did not result in the death of the victim is disproportionate and unconstitutional under the 8^th Amendment.