Charles “Sonny” Burton, a 75-year-old man in Alabama, is now facing execution for a crime committed more than three decades ago—despite the fact that he did not pull the trigger.
Burton was convicted as an accomplice in a 1991 robbery at an AutoZone store in Talladega, during which customer Doug Battle was fatally shot. Burton was not inside the store and did not fire the weapon, yet the state has scheduled his execution for March 12 using nitrogen gas, a method that continues to raise serious ethical and human rights concerns.
Prosecutors labeled Burton the “ringleader,” even though the person who actually killed Battle, Derrick DeBruce, ultimately did not die on death row. DeBruce’s death sentence was later reduced to life in prison, where he eventually died. That disparity has intensified calls for clemency, with critics questioning how the state can justify executing someone who did not commit the killing when the shooter himself was spared execution.
Support for clemency has come from unexpected and powerful voices—including one of the victim’s children and jurors from Burton’s original trial—who say carrying out this execution would be fundamentally unjust.
Burton’s attorney, Matt Schulz, condemned the decision to move forward, calling it a profound miscarriage of justice. He urged Governor Kay Ivey to intervene, emphasizing that Burton “has never taken a life.”
Governor Ivey has stated that she currently does not plan to grant clemency, though she retains the authority to halt or commute the execution at any point before March 12. The Alabama Attorney General’s Office opposes clemency, pointing to the fact that Burton’s death sentence has been upheld since a unanimous jury recommendation in 1992.
Yet even the state has acknowledged the moral contradictions in this case. In a 2015 court filing, Alabama conceded that executing Burton could be “arguably unjust” given that the actual shooter did not face the same punishment.
Since taking office in 2017, Governor Ivey has granted clemency just once—raising urgent questions about mercy, proportional punishment, and whether the death penalty can ever be administered fairly.
This case forces a reckoning: Is justice being served, or is the state preparing to carry out an irreversible act that deepens injustice rather than repairs it?