Georgia executes convicted killer of police officer

JACKSON, Ga., Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Gregory Lawler, convicted of the 1997 murder of a police officer, was executed in a Jackson, Ga., prison.

Lawler, 63, was executed by lethal injection late Wednesday. He did not record a final statement and declined a prayer, the Georgia Department of Corrections said Thursday.

He received the death penalty for the ambush and killing of John Sowa, an Atlanta police officer; another police officer, Patricia Cocciolone, was also shot in the incident and sustained a permanent brain injury. Sowa and Cocciolone responded to a report of a man assaulting a woman in a parking lot, and found Lawler attempting to pull his girlfriend, Donna Rodgers, to her feet. They drove Rodgers to the apartment she shared with Lawler after he walked away, and moments after Rodgers entered the apartment, Lawler shot at the officers with armor-piercing bullets. Neither officer fired a weapon.

State-appointed lawyers attempted a last-minute stay of execution Wednesday, saying Lawler is on the autism spectrum, diagnosed only last month, and that his execution would violate the 8th Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The appeal was rejected by the Georgia Supreme Court at 7 p.m. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected it shortly after 11 p.m. Lawler was put to death at 11:49 p.m. Wednesday.

Lawler became the 66th person executed in Georgia since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty, and the seventh executed in the state this year.