Montgomery, Alaa.. Alabama has set an execution date in March for a man who was sentenced to die for a fatal shooting during a 1991 robbery even though he did not pull the trigger.
Gov. Kay Ivey on Thursday set the March 12 death sentence using nitrogen gas for Charles “Sonny” Burton, 75. Burton was convicted as an accomplice in the shooting death of Doug Battle, a customer who was killed during an August 16 robbery of that year at an auto parts store in Talladega.
Burton did not shoot Battle and was not at the AutoZone store at the time of the fatal shooting. However, prosecutors portrayed him as the leader of the robbery ring and asked for the death penalty. Derek DeBrosse, the man who fired the gun, was also sentenced to death but was later sentenced Wholesale reduced He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in prison.
A cross-section of people, including one of the victim’s children and some jurors, urged the governor to keep it Consider compassion For Burton. They argued that it would be unfair to execute Burton when the shooter ended up getting a lesser sentence.
“We are very disappointed that Governor Ivey chose to set an execution date for Mr. Burton. But we hope and pray for her, as Gov. Oklahoma State I did in November “She continues to change her mind and stop this unjust execution of a man who was never killed,” Burton’s attorney, Matt Schultz, said.
In the letter notifying the prison commissioner of the appointment, Ivey wrote that she had no current plans to grant clemency but reserved the authority “to grant a reprieve or commutation, if necessary, at any time before execution.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office has opposed the clemency request. His office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
“Burton was convicted of capital murder in April 1992 and the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. This conviction and sentence were upheld at all levels,” an office spokesman said in an earlier statement.
Schulz noted that in seeking to uphold DeBrosse’s death sentence, the state argued in a 2015 lawsuit that it would be “arguably unfair” to confirm the death sentence for Burton but not the person who killed Battle.
Ivy did Grant clemency Once since taking office in 2017.