Condemned Alabama inmate granted rare commutation

(CN) — Alabama Governor Kay Ivey heeded broad calls for clemency and granted a rare commutation to death row inmate Charles “Sonny” Lee Burton Tuesday, sentencing him to life with no chance of parole for his role in the 1991 death of an AutoZone customer during a robbery.

Ivey’s action came just two days before Burton’s scheduled execution by nitrogen hypoxia and after a nationwide campaign highlighting the unfairness of the sentence, considering Burton was not the triggerman and had actually left the scene at the time the shooting took place.

Alabama’s felony murder law holds liable anyone involved in a death during the commission of certain serious crimes. Burton was convicted of capital murder in 1992; the jury recommended death unanimously, and the judge affirmed. Curiously, the triggerman himself had been granted a sentence of life without parole.

Burton later exhausted his direct appeals in Alabama state courts, and the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence in 1994. Federal courts also denied relief, but as Burton’s execution approached, the now 75-year-old inmate, who uses a wheelchair, gained an unlikely coalition of supporters. The victim’s daughter, six former jurors, faith leaders, advocacy groups and online petitions were among those who supported Burton’s clemency.

Meanwhile, since resuming capital punishment in 1983, statistics show two-term Governor Ivey has presided over more executions than any other Alabama governor. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Alabama ranks fifth nationally per capita at carrying out the death penalty. Alabama juries also impose the death penalty more per capita than other states, and it has one of the highest rates of inmates on death row.

“I firmly believe that the death penalty is just punishment for society’s most heinous offenders, as shown by the 25 executions I have presided over as governor,” Ivey said in a statement Tuesday. “In order to ensure the continued viability of the death penalty, however, I also believe that a government’s most consequential action must be administered fairly and proportionately.

“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,” she continued. “Yet Mr. Burton was set to be executed while DeBruce was allowed to live out his life in prison. I cannot proceed in good conscience with the execution of Mr. Burton under such disparate circumstances. I believe it would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not.”

A statement by the Equal Justice Initiative said Burton’s case “exemplifies the arbitrariness of Alabama’s death penalty.” His clemency petition called the sentence an “extreme outlier.” One of Burton’s attorneys said Tuesday they “are profoundly grateful that Sonny’s life has been spared.”

On the other hand, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall released a statement saying he was “deeply disappointed” with Ivey’s action, noting Burton was a “career criminal” who “dragged out his case through endless frivolous appeals.” Marshall is currently campaigning to replace Senator Tommy Tuberville in Congress as Tuberville looks to succeed Ivey in the governor’s office.

“Longstanding Alabama law recognizes accomplice liability, as has every judge that has touched this case over three decades,” Marshall wrote. “There has never been any doubt that Sonny Burton has blood on his hands.”

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