Born in Houston, Texas, to Wilmer St. John Garwood (1896–1987) and Ellen Burdine Clayton (1903–1993), Garwood was named after his maternal grandfather, William Lockhart Clayton, a Houston cotton merchant and, as undersecretary of state for economic affairs, a principal architect of the post-World War II Marshall Plan.
He served for three years as a JAG officer in the United States Army and then returned to Austin, Texas, where he entered private practice with the firm of Graves, Dougherty, Hearon, Moody & Garwood.
[citation needed] On September 17, 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated Garwood to a new seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit created by 92 Stat.
1993), Judge Garwood, writing for a unanimous panel, invalidated the Gun-Free School Zone Act as an unconstitutional exercise of the Commerce Clause power.
2001), Judge Garwood wrote the first federal appellate decision embracing the individual-rights view of the Second Amendment.