Alabama is set to start Charles “Sonny” Burton despite the fact that he did not kill anyone.
Before his death on Thursday, March 12, Burton, 75, spoke to NBC News about his future. “I shouldn’t die for something I didn’t do,” he said in a phone interview from the William C. Holman Correctional Facility, where he spent more than 30 years on death row.
Burton was sentenced to death because of the legal doctrine known as culpable homicide. This doctrine allows prosecutors to treat anyone involved in certain incidents as equally culpable for murder that occurred in the course of the crime, even if they did not commit the murder themselves.
In 1991, Burton and five other men were involved in the robbery of an AutoZone store in Talladega, Alabama, which ended with the murder of a customer. Doug Battle.
Burton admitted to entering the store with a gun and stealing money from a safe in the back room. He then said that he was running outside to wait for the car to run away.
While Burton was away, one of his associates, Derrick DeBruceshot the War in the back. The state admitted that Burton was not guilty of the killing in his appeal to the US Supreme Court to overturn his execution.
“DeBruce hit Battle, knocked him to the ground, then shot him in the back and killed him. Burton had already left the store when the incident happened,” said the Alabama Attorney General. Steve Marshall he wrote, via NBC News.
Burton also told the newspaper that he “didn’t know someone was going to be killed” during the robbery. “I was going to stop that,” he added.
After being arrested, Burton was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Prosecutors argued during the trial that he was the “leader” of the robbers, although he denied this.
“I didn’t help anyone, I didn’t help anyone. I didn’t tell anyone not to shoot anyone,” he said.
At that time, DeBruce was initially sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment after the court ruled that his lawyer did not speak effectively during the trial.
Burton and DeBruce sat next to each other on death row for several years before the latter’s sentence was commuted. After his death sentence was overturned, DeBruce moved to another prison. He later died in custody in 2020.
“He got me for my life with a stupid thing he did,” Burton said of DeBruce. “But I forgave him.”
Although Burton’s sentence has not been commuted, he has received support from those who believe the punishment is unfair.
In December 2025, the victim’s daughter, The Tori Battlepublished an op-ed in Montgomery Advertiser that appealed to Alabama The ruler Kay Ivey removing Burton from death row.
A convicted killer from Texas shared his last words with the families of his victims shortly before his execution. On Wednesday, January 28, Charles Victor Thompson – who was sentenced to death in connection with the April 1998 deaths of his ex-girlfriend Glenda Hayslip and her then-boyfriend, Darren Cain – died by lethal injection. […]
“Mr. Burton remains on death row not because moral clarity requires it, but because procedural rules have prevented the courts from correcting past mistakes,” he wrote. “When human life replaces technical barriers instead of reality, that is not justice, but the failure of a system that does nothing to honor the memory of my father.”
Meanwhile, many judges who voted for him to receive the death penalty came out and said they regretted their decision. Additionally, six signed affidavits have been submitted asking Ivey to show Burton clemency.
Despite a long list of Burton supporters, the state said Burton’s execution was justified. “His death sentence is long overdue,” Alabama’s attorney general wrote to the Supreme Court, according to the statement.
As his execution date nears, Burton said he hasn’t given up hope. “I will never give up hope, even if I am sitting in the chair no [gas mask] I am tied on my head,” he said, “I want people who listen to me to know that I did not kill anyone. These are my last words.”
