“It would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey stated in her announcement that she was commuting Charles “Sonny” Burton’s death sentence to life in prison without parole.
Charles “Sonny” Burton, now 75 years old, wheelchair-dependent, and in chronic physical pain, was sentenced to death in Alabama in 1992 for a murder he did not commit. In 1991, during a robbery at an Auto Zone, a customer, Doug Battle, was shot and killed by Derrick DeBruce, one of six robbers. Burton was not inside the store at the time of the shooting. Nevertheless, prosecutors charged both Burton and DeBruce with a capital crime, leading to their convictions and death sentences. Later, DeBruce’s conviction was overturned, and he was resentenced to life without parole, while Burton’s death sentence remained.
Six of Burton’s eight living jurors indicated they would not oppose his sentence being commuted, and “three jurors are specifically requesting commutation, noting, among other concerns, that they would not have voted for death in the first place had they known the shooter would be alleviated of that same sentence,” Burton’s lawyer stated in his appeal to Ivey for clemency. In addition, Battle’s daughter, Tori Battle, publicly forgave Burton and opposed his execution, asking the governor to commute his sentence.
“Mr. Burton’s death sentence is arbitrarily disproportionate, and his execution, given his relative level of culpability, would undermine the legitimacy of Alabama’s system of justice. On the other hand, commutation would serve to maintain the dignity and legitimacy of our State’s laws and Constitution,” Matt Schulz, the assistant federal defender who represented Burton, wrote in his appeal.
This was Ivey’s second grant of clemency in her nine years as governor. In March of last year, she commuted the death sentence of Rocky Myers, citing the lack of evidence of his guilt.