Parole board denies clemency for Georgia death row inmate

In a clemency petition submitted to the parole board, Fults' lawyers detailed a childhood characterized by neglect and abuse at the hands of heavy-drinking family members and his mother's string of violent boyfriends.

Fults has an intellectual disability that means he "functions in the lowest 1 percent of the population," meaning he has insufficient reasoning abilities, lacks impulse control and fails to learn from experience, the clemency petition says.

Fults' trial lawyer failed to tell the jury during sentencing that Fults is intellectually disabled and didn't go into the details of his rough childhood, his lawyers wrote.

Fults' lawyers also have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution and to consider his claims that his death sentence is unconstitutional because of Buffington's alleged racial prejudice.