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Update: 11 Mar 26 12:28 pm: Alabama governor grants clemency Charles “Sonny” Burton Just two days before he was scheduled to be executed.
Governor Kay Ivey Said she could not carry out the death penalty “in good conscience” because Burton did not commit murder in the burglary in which he was involved. His sentence has been commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole, she added.
“I believe it is unfair if one participant in a crime is executed but the participant who pulled the trigger is not,” Ivey said in a statement on Tuesday, March 10. CNN. “He will now be punished in the same way as the person who triggered it.”
Burton released his own statement after Ivey’s decision. “Just saying thank you doesn’t seem like much. But that’s all I can give her. I do thank her,” Burton’s attorney said. “Thank you Governor.”
ability:
Alabama will perform Charles “Sonny” Burton Even though he never killed anyone.
Burton, 75, was interviewed ahead of his execution on Thursday, March 12 nbc news About his fate. “I didn’t deserve to die for something I didn’t do,” he said in a telephone interview from the William C. Holman Correctional Institution, where he spent more than 30 years on death row.
Burton was sentenced to death under a legal doctrine known as felony murder. The doctrine allows prosecutors to treat anyone involved in certain felonies as equally responsible for killings that occur during the crime, even if they themselves did not commit the killings.
In 1991, Burton and five other men participated in a robbery of an AutoZone store in Talladega, Alabama, that ended with the customer being murdered. Doug Battle.
Burton admitted he entered the store with a gun and stole cash from a safe in a back room. He then said he fled outside and waited in a getaway car.
While Burton was outside, one of his accomplices, Derek DeBrucefatally shooting Battle in the back. The state acknowledged in its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution that Burton was not responsible for the killing.
“DeBruce struck Bartel, knocking him to the ground and then shot him in the back. Burton had left the store when the shooting occurred,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall According to NBC News.
Burton also told the media that he “had no idea a murder was going to happen” at the time of the robbery. “I’m going to stop that,” he added.
After his arrest, Burton was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Prosecutors argued during the trial that he was the “ringleader” of the robbery, a claim he denied.
“I didn’t help anybody. I didn’t help anybody. I didn’t tell anybody to shoot anybody,” he said.
DeBruce, meanwhile, was initially sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life in prison after a court ruled his lawyers had provided ineffective representation at trial.
Burton and DeBruss lived side by side on death row for several years before DeBruss’s sentence was commuted. After the death sentence was overturned, DeBruce was moved to another prison. He later died in custody in 2020.
“He killed me because he did something stupid,” Burton said of DeBruce. “But I forgive him.”
Although Burton’s sentence was never changed, he gained support from those who believed the punishment was unfair.
In December 2025, the victim’s daughter, battle of tori, Published a column exist montgomery advertiser This urges Alabama governor kayvi Get Burton off death row
“Mr. Burton remains on death row not because moral clarity requires it but because procedural rules prevent the court from correcting past wrongs,” she wrote. “When a person’s life depends on a technical obstacle rather than the truth, that is not justice, but a failure of the system that does nothing to honor my father’s memory.”
Meanwhile, several jurors who voted for him to receive the death penalty came forward to say they regretted their decision. Additionally, six signed affidavits have since been sent asking Ivey to show mercy to Burton.
Despite the many supporters behind Burton, the state believed Burton’s execution was justified. “His death sentence is long overdue,” Alabama’s attorney general wrote in a Supreme Court filing, according to the outlet.
As the execution date approaches, Burton said he has not lost hope. “I never lose hope, even if I’m sitting in a chair with a (gas mask) strapped to my head,” he said. “I want people who are listening to me to know that I didn’t kill anyone. Those were my last words.”