Commissioner: Homer Bryson

Director of Public Affairs: Joan Heath

Lawler Execution Final Media Advisory

FORSYTH, Ga. – The execution of condemned murderer Gregory Paul Lawler scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 19, 2016, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson was carried out on Wednesday, October 19, 2016, at 11:49 p.m. in accordance with state law. Lawler refused a final prayer and did not record a final statement. 

Lawler was sentenced to death in 2000 for the murder of Atlanta Police Officer John Sowa.

There have been 66 men and one woman executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Lawler was the 44th inmate put to death by lethal injection. There are presently 60 men on death row in Georgia.