An Alabama man is set to be executed by the state on March 12 for a murder he did not commit.
Charles “Sonny” Burton, 75, has been in prison for 33 years, after he was tried and convicted in 1991 for a group armed robbery at a Talledega AutoZone that ended in the death of Doug Battle, a 34-year-old father who was a customer at the shop. According to Burton, he did not know there would be a murder that day, and he never even heard the shot that killed Battle, which came from his partner Derrick DeBruce’s gun.
“I didn’t know a murder was going to happen,” he told NBC News in a phone call from William C. Holman Correctional Facility. “I would have stopped that.”
Burton claims that he went into a store with a gun and stole cash, but fled to a getaway car when he was done. According to the Associated Press, court testimony shows Battle entered the store at the end of the robbery and exchanged words with DeBruce.
Burton’s execution is legal under felony murder, a rule that allows for someone to be charged with murder if they were involved in committing a violent felony where a murder occurs. Prosecutors claimed that he was the “ringleader” of the attack, which he denies. Some jurors have spoken out since, saying that they regret voting to end Burton’s life. Six have written to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to ask for Burton not to be executed.
DeBruce, who is responsible for firing a gunshot that killed Battle, was sentenced to death row with Burton, but his sentence was reduced to life in prison after a court found that his attorney did not provide effective representation during the penalty phase of his trial, per NBC News. He died in 2020 while in custody.
The daughter of Battle, who was nine years old when her father was killed, has also asked for the state to commute Burton’s death sentence. In an essay published in the Montgomery Advertiser, Tori Battle said, “My love for my father does not require another death, especially one that defies reason.”
“Mr. Burton remains on death row not because moral clarity demands it, but because procedural rules have blocked courts from correcting past mistakes,” she wrote. “When a man’s life turns on technical barriers rather than the truth, that is not justice, but a failure of the system that does nothing to honor my father’s memory.”
According to an online campaign to save Burton’s life, his health is deteriorating, and he is confined to a wheelchair. Tori Battle also wrote that Burton is “frail and poses no threat” in her essay.
Burton is set to be executed by nitrogen gas on Thursday. He told the Associated Press he hopes and prays to God that Gov. Ivey will reverse his fate and allow him to “reach out to the young people in the street.”
