He served as a Democratic member of the Georgia House of Representatives.
He attended Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College and the University of Georgia.
[3] In 1949, Lanier served as a lawyer in the murder trial for Robert Mallard.
He presented a testimony of Mallard's wife Amy as his only piece of evidence.
[3] Lanier died on March 17, 2015, in Quitman, Georgia,[5] at the age of 88.