Genius Publishing author S. Thorne Harper examines the troubling case of Charles Lee “Sonny” Burton — an elderly man scheduled for execution in Alabama despite the state acknowledging he did not commit the killing.
His essay explores the legal framework behind the case and the broader questions it raises about justice and capital punishment.
Sometime during a 30-hour window from 12 a.m., Thursday, March 12, to 6 a.m., Friday the 13th, the state of Alabama is scheduled to make morbid history by executing a man who the state has shown did not kill anyone.
The state knows that Charles Lee “Sonny” Burton was not immediately present in the 1991 robbery-related murder of a customer in a Talladega car parts store. The state fully acknowledges that Burton was outside the store when Doug Battle, a 34-year-old Army veteran and father of four, was shot and killed.
The man who did pull the trigger, Derrick DeBruce, was sentenced to death for the killing. In 2002, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison when a federal court ruled that he had been saddled with inadequate legal counsel at trial. DeBruce died in 2020.
The state prosecuted Sonny Burton under Alabama’s “felony murder statute,” permitting the state to bring murder charges against someone involved in a felony during which a murder occurs, even if that person did not directly participate in the killing.
Now 75, Burton is wheelchair-bound, suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, and has to wear a helmet due to persistent falls. He has exhausted all state- and federal-level appeals.
On August 16, 1991, a group of men, including Burton, entered a Talladega car parts store. At trial, state prosecutors portrayed Burton as the leader of the group. He left the store before the shooting, according to court testimony.
“Even people who are strongly in favor of the death penalty recognize that this situation is wrong,” Matt Shultz, an assistant federal defender representing Burton, told Alabama Public Radio. Burton was outside at the time of the shooting, Shultz said. “Even by the state’s evidence here, Mr. Burton did not kill anyone. Mr. Burton did not order anyone killed. He wasn’t even in the building.”
Lois Harris, a daughter of the victim, has joined the effort to save Burton from execution. “It’s not fair that he gets the death penalty and the killer gets life,” Harris said. “It’s just wrong.”
“I’m so sorry,” Burton said. “If I had the power to bring (Doug Battle) back, I would. I’m so sorry…I hope and pray to God that you will grant me clemency. Allow me to reach out to the young people in the street.”
Burton’s hope for clemency resides solely with Alabama Governor Kay Ivey. Ivey’s spokeswoman, Gina Maiola, said, “Governor Ivey has no plans to grant clemency.”
The means of execution in Alabama is asphyxiation by nitrogen gas. The state adopted this as its means of capital punishment in 2023, becoming the first government in the world to use the method. Nitrogen hypoxia, essentially depriving the condemned of oxygen, was first used in the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted of a murder-for-hire plot.
Smith’s 2023 execution proved a macabre spectacle. He suffered greatly, according to eyewitness accounts. Witnesses reported scenes of the condemned man “ripping his head forward over and over again,” of him “heaving back and forth,” of “minutes of someone struggling for their life,” and of his mask filling with bodily fluid.
It took 22 minutes to kill him.
Alabama, Oklahoma, and Mississippi are the only states that use nitrogen hypoxia as the means of capital punishment.
Charles Lee “Sonny” Burton is scheduled to become the fifth person in Alabama put to death by nitrogen hypoxia. His execution is set to take place at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
S. Thorne Harper writes and resides in Birmingham, Alabama. He has written “The Alabama Tryst Murder Mystery,” a retelling of a 1927 capital murder case and the inaugural use of the electric chair. Harper’s book will be released by Genius Publishing on April 8, 2026—99 years after Alabama’s first electric chair execution.