Alabama is set to kill Sonny Burton on Thursday. Governor Kay Ivey must stop it.
Sonny Burton did not kill anyone, but Alabama put him on death row and his execution is scheduled to be carried out this week — unless Ivey grants clemency or courts intervene.
An execution is set for Thursday that has already rightfully gotten a lot of attention — even in this era of the U.S. Supreme Court virtually never interceding to stop executions from taking place.
Alabama is scheduled to kill Charles “Sonny” Burton for a murder that everyone agrees he did not commit. As the Alabama Reflector’s Ralph Chapoco explained, “He did not pull the trigger that killed Doug Battle during a 1991 robbery at a Talladega AutoZone, and was not in the store when Battle was shot.“
The legal concept that allows such a situation is known as “felony murder,” and it essentially means that, if someone is killed during the commission of a felony, you can be charged with murder. And, due to accomplice liability, everyone involved in a crime can face punishment for the consequences of the killing.1 In a state with the death penalty, like Alabama, a man like Burton can end up on death row.
You’re not wrong to think that sounds wrong. There have been efforts to eliminate or, at least, restrict the bluntest effects of the felony-murder rule. The Supreme Court has limited its use in capital cases, but only slightly.
For Sonny Burton, the rule applied to him in the 1991 robbery where Battle was killed.
And, on Thursday, Alabama is scheduled to kill Burton.
Lee Hedgepeth, who has covered many of Alabama’s executions — and botched executions — in recent years, published an in-depth interview with Burton’s family more than a month ago.
Burton, who is 75 years old, already requires a wheelchair to get around. As Hedgepeth reported:
The Department of Corrections has provided him a helmet to limit his risk of falling: a protective measure ahead of the state’s planned attempt to put him to death.
In January, the Alabama Supreme Court paved the way for the Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to set Burton’s execution date.
Burton’s body is already failing him. Soon, barring court action or clemency, Alabama will execute him anyway.
Hedgepeth told me that he has more reporting coming and is scheduled to be a witness should the execution proceed, so be sure to follow him and subscribe to Tread by Lee Hedgepeth.
The scheduled execution has already been covered in the opinion pages of The New York Times and at Slate.
At this point, although Burton has a petition and stay or execution request pending at the U.S. Supreme Court, the likely power rests with Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.
As Elizabeth Vartkessian wrote in the Times:
In a state with some of the most overcrowded and deadly prisons in the country, Mr. Burton’s case provides an opportunity for a different kind of justice to prevail. In choosing mercy for Mr. Burton, Governor Ivey would not just be extending grace to a man who deserves it; she would be challenging a culture of indifference that has allowed Alabama’s prison system to grow too comfortable with its own inhumanity.
Examining the circumstances of this case — like with most death sentences — is to face the reality that we do not properly use capital punishment.
For example, take this fact, as Sophia Laurenzi detailed at Slate:
In 2014, the state agreed to resentence [Derrick] DeBruce, the actual shooter, to life without parole. If Burton is executed on March 12, he will be the only person that Alabama executes for Battle’s murder, since the actual triggerman was granted leniency.
Burton’s life should not be up in the air this weekend, for many reasons.
And yet, it almost certainly will come down to whether Kay Ivey grants clemency to Burton. It would only be second time she would do so, but it should happen. Ivey has overseen substantial problems with the death penalty during her time as governor — stopping executions back in 2022 for a review of the state’s process after multiple instances of the state botching executions or being unable to carry out scheduled executions at all. She has seen the failures of this system.
Everyone should be opposed to this scheduled execution. Death penalty opponents and skeptics, to be sure, but, honestly, death penalty proponents should not want such a clearly, fundamentally unfair and unnecessarily cruel execution to proceed.
I believe that we have proven we cannot be trusted with a criminal legal system that allows capital punishment. The result will not be fair or just.
But, for those who think — who insist — we can fairly carry out capital punishment, among them being Ivey, allowing Burton’s execution to happen would be unambiguous proof that you are wrong.
Although not relevant to Burton’s case, I clarified the language to make clear that the killing needn’t even be the result of the actions of a co-defendant in the commission of the felony. There have been many cases, for example, of accomplices facing felony-murder charges following police killings — including in Alabama.
Save Sonny! I live in Montgomery, Alabama and there are "Save Sonny" yard signs popping up everywhere. They've also been holding Mercy Monday vigils in front of the governors mansion. There's a documentary called "The Alabama Solution" that shows the horrors of our criminal justice system. The film was made by the prisoners using their cellphone cameras, so it gives you an unfiltered version of the reality under which they live and die. Thank you to everyone who is fighting for clemency for Sonny Burton. We're not asking for him to be freed, we just don't want the State of Alabama to kill him (especially using nitrogen suffocation). We must end the death penalty!
Let me get this straight. The actual shooter was granted life without parole the man who was outside and not responsible for the shooting faces execution. Yea this makes a hell of a lot sense! Hope his life is spared.