By Kate Brumback
Associated Press
ATLANTA — Lawyers seeking clemency for a Georgia inmate scheduled for execution this week say a recent autism diagnosis helps explain his actions the night he killed one police officer and wounded another.
Gregory Paul Lawler is to be put to death Wednesday by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson.
The 63-year-old was convicted of murder in the October 1997 shooting death of Atlanta police Officer John Sowa. Authorities say Lawler also critically injured Officer Patricia Cocciolone.
In a clemency application declassified Monday by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, Lawler’s attorneys ask the board to halt his execution to consider the diagnosis and its effects. The board, the only Georgia panel authorized to commute a death sentence, has scheduled a clemency hearing Tuesday for Lawler.
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