Cole v. State

895 So. 2d 398, 2004 WL 2696901
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedNovember 24, 2004
DocketSC03-2204
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 895 So. 2d 398 (Cole v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cole v. State, 895 So. 2d 398, 2004 WL 2696901 (Fla. 2004).

Opinion

895 So.2d 398 (2004)

Loran K. COLE, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC03-2204.

Supreme Court of Florida.

November 24, 2004.
Rehearing Denied February 24, 2005.

Bill Jennings, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Richard Kiley and James Viggiano, Assistants CCRC, Middle Region, Tampa, FL, for Appellant.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, and Barbara C. Davis, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, FL, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Loran K. Cole appeals an order of the circuit court denying a motion for postconviction DNA testing under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.853. We have jurisdiction, see art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const., and affirm the circuit court's denial.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The facts of Cole's crimes are important to this appeal. Therefore, we set them forth in detail as previously recited by this Court on direct appeal:

On February 18, 1994, Pam Edwards, a senior at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, drove to the Ocala National Forest, where she met her brother, John Edwards, a freshman at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. The two planned on camping in the forest for the weekend and eventually decided to camp in Hopkins Prairie. They were setting up camp when Loran Cole briefly stopped by their campsite. Cole soon returned to the campsite, introduced himself as "Kevin," and helped them set up camp. After John and Pam ate dinner, Cole and William Paul came to the Edwards' campsite. Paul was carrying a walking stick and was introduced to the Edwards as Cole's brother. The four sat around the campfire, and at about 10:45 p.m., they decided to walk to a pond.
*399 The four walked for a while but never found the pond. Instead, Cole jumped on Pam and knocked her to the ground. She got up and tried to run; however, Cole caught her, hit her on the back of the head, handcuffed her, and threw her down on the ground. Meanwhile, John had taken Paul's walking stick and was hitting him with it. Cole then helped Paul subdue John and moved John on the ground next to Pam. While they lay close to each other on the ground, John apologized to Pam for having exposed them to the dangers of these two strangers. Cole told the Edwards that he wanted to take their cars, and he went through their pockets and took their personal property, including their jewelry.
Paul took Pam up the trail, and he was complaining about his hand and head, which were injured in the altercation with John. Pam could hear Cole asking John why he hurt Cole's brother and could hear John grunt a few times. Cole then came to where Pam and Paul were sitting and told them that they were going to wait until John passed out. Cole called back to John several times, and John responded by moaning. Eventually, Cole told Pam he was going to move John off the trail and tie him up. Pam then heard something that resembled a gagging sound. When Cole returned, he said that John must be having trouble with his dinner, hinting that John was vomiting. John died that night from a slashed throat and three blows to the head, which fractured his skull. The injury to the throat caused a loss of blood externally and internally into John's lungs.
Pam, Paul, and Cole then started walking back to Cole's campsite. On the way, they walked past John, and he was not moving. At the campsite, Cole forced Pam to sleep naked by threatening her that unless she cooperated, she and John would be killed. Cole then forced her to have sexual intercourse with him.
The next morning, Cole went to check on John and told Pam that John was fine. Cole left the campsite to purchase marijuana. When he returned, the three smoked marijuana, and Cole again forced Pam to have intercourse with him. After eating dinner, they packed up as much of the camp as would fit into the backpacks carried by Cole and Paul. Cole then gagged Pam and tied her to two trees. Cole and Paul left in Pam's car and went to a friend's trailer, where they spent the night. The two left several items of John Edwards' personal property at the trailer. Thereafter, Cole and Paul returned Pam's car to the Ocala National Forest and took John's car, a Geo Metro.
By the early morning on Sunday, Pam was able to free herself of the ropes. She did not move because she was afraid that if Cole and Paul returned and she was not there, they would hurt John. She stayed in that spot until daylight and tried to find John. When she was unable to find him, she flagged down a motorist, who took her to call the police. The police returned with Pam to the scene, and the police located John's body. The body was face down and was covered with pine needles, sand, debris, and small, freshly cut palm fronds. Both of his hands were in an upward fetal position; there was a shoestring ligature around his left wrist and a shoestring partially wrapped around his right wrist.
Police thereafter arrested Paul and Cole in Ocala on Monday, February 21, 1994. Paul and Cole were indicted on charges of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping with a weapon, and *400 two counts of robbery with a weapon. Cole was also indicted on two counts of sexual battery. Paul pleaded nolo contendere to the charges and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for twenty-five years on the murder charge and concurrent terms on the remaining charges. After a jury trial, Cole was found guilty on all counts of the indictment. A penalty-phase hearing was held, after which the jury unanimously recommended death. Finding four aggravators, no statutory mitigators, and two nonstatutory mitigators, the trial court followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Cole to death.

Cole v. State, 701 So.2d 845, 848-49 (Fla.1997) (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted). Specifically, the trial court found the following aggravators: (1) Cole had previously been convicted of another felony; (2) the murder was committed during the course of a kidnapping; (3) the murder was committed for pecuniary gain; and (4) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.

This Court affirmed Cole's convictions and death sentence on direct appeal. Id. at 856. Cole then timely filed an initial Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 motion and thereafter an amended rule 3.850 motion. The trial court denied postconviction relief. On appeal, this Court affirmed the trial court's denial of Cole's rule 3.850 motion and denied Cole's petition for writ of habeas corpus. See Cole v. State, 841 So.2d 409 (Fla.2003). In that decision, we also noted that Cole sought postconviction DNA testing and stated:

Cole did not include this claim in his rule 3.850 motion; instead, Cole made an oral request for the DNA testing at the Huff hearing. [Huff v. State, 622 So.2d 982 (Fla.1993)]. The trial court summarily denied Cole's request without explanation. We note that the trial court's denial of Cole's DNA request came prior to the effective date of section 925.11, Florida Statutes (2001), and Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.853 (DNA testing). We do not address Cole's request for relief at this time except to state that our decision should not be read to prohibit Cole from seeking such testing pursuant to the mandates of section 925.11 and rule 3.853.

Id. at 419.

Thereafter, on September 20, 2003, Cole filed with the circuit court a rule 3.853 motion for postconviction DNA testing, requesting DNA testing on:

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895 So. 2d 398, 2004 WL 2696901, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cole-v-state-fla-2004.