A Georgia death row inmate’s recent autism diagnosis helps explain his actions the night he killed one police officer and wounded another, his lawyers argued in a clemency application declassified Monday.
Gregory Paul Lawler, 63, is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted of murder in the October 1997 shooting death of Atlanta police Officer John Sowa, and authorities say he also critically injured Officer Patricia Cocciolone.
