Governor Spares Death-Row Inmate Who Didn't Kill Anyone

Alabama's governor has halted an execution two days before it was to be carried out, citing a punishment gap between the gunman and the man who didn't fire a shot. On Tuesday, Gov. Kay Ivey changed Charles Lee "Sonny" Burton's sentence from death to life without parole, blocking his planned nitrogen hypoxia execution for the 1991 killing of AutoZone customer Doug Battle in Talladega, the New York Times reports. Ivey, a longtime supporter of capital punishment, said she "cannot proceed in good conscience" because the shooter, Derrick DeBruce, is serving life without parole after a successful appeal, while Burton was the only co-defendant still facing death.

• "Charles Burton did not shoot the victim, did not direct the triggerman to shoot the victim and had already left the store by the time the shooting occurred," the Republican governor said in a statement. Yet Mr. Burton was set to be executed while DeBruce was allowed to live out his life in prison.

Burton, 75, will now serve the same sentence as DeBruce. The commutation follows weeks of pressure from former jurors, faith leaders, and Battle's daughter. "It disturbs me to think of a man who is now elderly, being executed, who if he had a better lawyer, probably never would have ended up on death row who questioned the fairness of executing an elderly man who never pulled the trigger," Tori Battle wrote to the governor in November. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall expressed disappointment, telling NBC News that there has "never been any doubt that Sonny Burton has Douglas Battle's blood on his hands."

"Burton does not deserve special treatment because he is old—he could have been executed a long time ago, but like many death-row inmates, he chose to drag out his case through endless frivolous appeals," Marshall said. It's just the second commutation Ivey has granted in almost nine years as governor; in 2025 she spared Rocky Myers, citing doubts about his guilt. There was no forensic evidence linking Myers to the 1991 murder he was convicted of, and the judge in the case overrode the jury's recommendation to sentence him to death, per the Death Penalty Information Center. Myers was the first Alabama death row inmate granted clemency since 1999.