The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the most culpable offenders—the “worst of the worst.” Charles “Sonny” Burton has been on Alabama’s death row since 1992 even though he never killed anyone and even after the State agreed to a life-without-parole sentence for the person who actually shot and killed the victim.
Today, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey commuted Mr. Burton’s sentence to life without parole, correcting a death sentence that exemplified the arbitrariness of Alabama’s death penalty.
“It’s absolutely not fair. You don’t execute someone who did not pull the trigger,” Priscilla Townsend, one of three jurors who explicitly asked the governor to grant clemency, told The Associated Press.
She still believes in the death penalty “for the worst of the worst,” she said—but that is not Mr. Burton.
“I am deeply disappointed in how this case has slipped through the cracks,” Ms. Townsend wrote in a recent op-ed calling for clemency, “and am concerned about Alabama’s system of justice if it allows Mr. Burton’s execution.”
Six of the eight living jurors who voted to sentence Mr. Burton to death in 1992 expressed no opposition to his sentence being commuted to life without parole, according to the clemency petition submitted to the governor.
Juror James Cottongim wrote the governor that, while this was a terrible crime, it would be “very unjust” for Mr. Burton to be the one executed for it.
“[S]ince Mr. Burton was not the man who pulled the trigger, it just seems wrong that he should be put to death when the shooter was resentenced to life,” he wrote. “Our original sentence of death is just no longer appropriate given the circumstances.”
“An Extreme Outlier”
Charles Burton was one of six men involved in the 1991 robbery of an auto parts store in Talladega, Alabama. It is undisputed that, after Mr. Burton exited the store, Derrick DeBruce shot and killed customer Doug Battle.
“Not only did he not kill anyone, but he didn’t order anyone to kill anyone,” Mr. Burton’s lawyer, Matt Schulz, said. “He didn’t hire anyone to kill anyone. He didn’t tell anyone to kill anyone. He literally did not even see anyone kill anyone.”
All six men were charged with capital murder, but the State reached agreements with four of the men and allowed them to avoid the death penalty.
Mr. DeBruce was sentenced to death, but in 2014, a federal court overturned his death sentence because his constitutional rights were violated at trial. The State agreed that he should be resentenced to life without parole.
Mr. Burton was the only one facing execution.
That made the case “an extreme outlier” among death penalty cases, his clemency application explained.
“It would be wrong to execute a man who did not even see the shooting take place, after the state agreed to resentence the shooter to life without parole, and this is simply not the kind of case most people think of when they envision the death penalty being carried out,” Mr. Schulz told AP.
“Pray She Does the Right Thing”
Tori Battle was nine when her father was killed. She urged the governor to grant clemency to Mr. Burton.
“I do not see how this execution will contribute to my healing,” she wrote to the governor. “My father, Doug Battle, was many things. He was strong, but he valued peace. He did not believe in revenge. And in that way, I am very much his daughter…I hope you will consider extending grace to Mr. Burton and granting him clemency.”
Mr. Burton, 75, is frail and in failing health, his sister Eddie Mae Ellison told AP. He suffers from debilitating rheumatoid arthritis and cannot move without a great deal of pain. He primarily uses a wheelchair, his attorney said, and has to wear a state-issued helmet due to frequent falls.
The State of Alabama nonetheless moved to suffocate Mr. Burton to death, and in January, the Alabama Supreme Court authorized the governor to set an execution date. She scheduled his execution by nitrogen suffocation for March 12.
Gov. Ivey has presided over the executions of 25 people during her nine years as governor—the most of any state executive since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to Tread.
Last year, she commuted the death sentence of Robin “Rocky” Myers to life in prison without parole, citing considerable questions about his guilt.
Other Republican governors, including Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, have granted clemency in similar cases, AP reports.
“This outlier case is a quintessential case for the exercise of executive clemency,” Mr. Burton’s lawyers wrote in their clemency petition. “It is one which, similarly to a handful of cases from other states, slipped through the cracks.”
“I have voiced my opinion to Governor Ivey,” Ms. Battle said in a statement read to Mr. Burton’s loved ones and supporters at a recent gathering in Montgomery. “I hope and pray she does the right thing and does not allow this execution to go forward.”