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In a significant move, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has granted clemency to Charles “Sonny” Burton, just days before his scheduled execution.
Governor Ivey decided to change the 75-year-old Burton’s sentence from death to life imprisonment without parole on March 10, merely two days ahead of his planned execution by nitrogen hypoxia, as reported by WSFA.
The case of Burton drew national attention because, although he was involved in the 1991 armed robbery that resulted in Doug Battle’s death, Burton did not actually fire the weapon and was not present in the building during the shooting.
In her communication to John Hamm, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, Ivey expressed, “I firmly believe the death penalty serves as a just punishment for society’s most egregious offenders, as evidenced by the 25 executions I have overseen as governor.” However, she added, “For the death penalty to remain a viable option, it must be applied fairly and proportionately,” according to WSFA.
Governor Ivey pointed out that although Derrick DeBruce, the actual shooter, was initially given a death sentence, he later succeeded in a federal appeal and was resentenced to life without parole. This left Burton as the sole member of the six-person robbery group facing a death sentence for the crime.
“Charles Burton did not shoot the victim, did not direct the triggerman to shoot the victim and had already left the store by the time the shooting occurred,” Ivey wrote. “Yet Mr. Burton was set to be executed while DeBruce was allowed to live out his life in prison.”
Ivey decided to call off the execution after considering the discrepancy in the sentencing of the two men.
“I cannot proceed in good conscience with the execution of Mr. Burton under such disparate circumstances,” she wrote. “I believe it would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not.”
Doug Battle Killed in 1991 AutoZone Robbery
Battle was killed Aug. 16, 1991 after six men, including Burton, robbed a Talladega AutoZone.
While Burton admitted to carrying out the robbery and stealing cash from a safe in the backroom, according to NBC News, he was outside waiting by the getaway car when DeBruce fired at Battle, a customer, striking him in the lower back.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall also confirmed that sequence of events in a response to Burton’s application for a stay of execution to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“DeBruce hit Battle, knocking him to the floor, then fatally shot him in the back,” Marshall wrote. “Burton had already left the store when the shooting occurred.”
At trial, co-defendent LuJuan McCants testified that Burton had been the ringleader during the robbery, instructing the crew that he would take care of anyone who “needed to be hurt,” ultimately leading to his conviction, per AL.com. Yet, McCants later said in a court declaration obtained by the outlet that he had felt “very intimidated” by the power the prosecutor held over his future.
“When I testified that Mr. Burton said ‘to let him take care of it’ if somebody caused any trouble, I did not mean to imply that Mr. Burton intended any violence to take place,” he wrote. “In fact, I had never known Mr. Burton to be violent, and I had never seen him violent.”
McCants added that he just testified at the time to what his attorney told him to say.
Charles Burton Admits to Robbery, Questions Death Sentence
For his part, Burton—who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and is confined to a wheelchair—told NBC News from prison March 9 that he never would have condoned violence or instructed anyone else to kill anyone.
“I didn’t know a murder was going to happen,” he insisted. “I would have stopped that.”
He was still struggling to understand why he was the one on death row.
“I don’t understand that part,” he told AL.com. “Why should I be facing execution when I hadn’t committed murder, I didn’t have no part in it, didn’t even know it happened.”
Charles Burton Earns Support For Clemency Appeal
His fight for clemency received national attention and earned the support from others, including a a coalition of faith leaders from Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
On March 9, according to WFSA, protestors marched from the governor’s mansion to the state capitol, delivering a petition with 67,000 signatures asking for the governor to spare Burton’s life.
“The shooter and Mr. Burton were both convicted of death, but then the shooter was reconvicted to life without parole,” Burton’s attorney Mark Schulz told the news outlet. “Supporting clemency here would signal to the people of our state that our system of justice works.”
He added that the governor “has that power to act as a fail-safe to ensure something like this does not happen.”
DeBruce died in prison in 2020.
Oxygen reached out to Schulz for additional comment, but did not receive an immediate reply.
For help, Burton’s legal team has also turned to the jurors in the case, including in his clemency petition letters from six of the eight surviving jurors who now say they wouldn’t oppose a commuted sentence.
In one letter, per AL.com, juror James Cottingim called the execution “very unjust.”
“Had I known the shooter would later be taken off death row, I would not have voted for the death sentence in Mr. Burton’s case, and I certainly believe it would only be right to lower his sentence to life in prison,” Cottingim wrote. “He would still not be getting off easy, and that is also only right.”
As the execution date neared, Battle’s daughter Tori Battle also joined the fight for clemency, writing an impassioned editorial in the Montgomery Advertiser late last year asking Ivey to intervene.
“My love for my father does not require another death, especially one that defies reason,” she wrote. “Mercy does not dishonor him. It honors the values he taught me.”
She also wrote a letter to Ivey in November of 2025 asking the governor to explain why “executing Charles Burton is necessary,” per AL.com.
She wrote, “It disturbs me to think of a man who is now elderly, being executed, who if he had a better lawyer, probably never would have ended up on death row.”
She added that her father had been a man who stood for peace and “did not believe in revenge.”
Attorney General’s Office Had Opposed the Clemency
The decision March 10 marks the second time Ivey has commuted the sentence of someone on death row.
Oxygen reached out to her office for additional comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
Marshall’s office had opposed Burton’s request for clemency.
“Burton was convicted of capital murder in April 1992 and that the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty,” a spokesperson told The Associated Press.. “That conviction and sentence have been upheld at every level.”