Victim’s Daughter and Former Juror Oppose Execution of Alabama Man Who Officials Acknowledges Did Not Pull the Trigger

Two women inti­mate­ly con­nect­ed to a 1991 mur­der case in Alabama have pub­licly opposed the intend­ed exe­cu­tion of Charles ​“Sonny” Burton, a man both the state and his attor­neys acknowl­edge did not fire the fatal shot. Priscilla Townsend, who served on the jury that sen­tenced Mr. Burton to death, and Tori Battle, whose father Doug Battle was killed dur­ing the rob­bery in ques­tion, have each writ­ten op-eds urg­ing Governor Kay Ivey to grant clemen­cy. On January 22, 2026, the Alabama Supreme Court autho­rized Governor Kay Ivey to set an exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Burton.

Mr. Burton, now 75, was con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der for his role in an August 1991 rob­bery in Talladega, Alabama. Six men par­tic­i­pat­ed in the rob­bery. Mr. Burton took mon­ey from the safe and had left the store when Derrick DeBruce shot and killed Mr. Battle dur­ing an alter­ca­tion. Mr. Burton was con­vict­ed under Alabama’s felony mur­der statute, which holds par­tic­i­pants in cer­tain felonies liable for any deaths that occur dur­ing the com­mis­sion of those crimes. Mr. DeBruce, the acknowl­edged shoot­er, was also sen­tenced to death, but in 2002 his sen­tence was over­turned and the state agreed to resen­tence him to life without parole.

Ms. Townsend, who served on Mr. Burton’s jury in 1992, recent­ly wrote that she has thought about her deci­sion for more than three decades. ​“Mr. Burton was not inside the AutoZone at the time of the mur­der. He was not the shoot­er, and yet the state sought and secured a death sen­tence against him any­way,” Ms. Townsend wrote. ​“At the time, I did not ful­ly under­stand what that meant. I do now.” During the tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors char­ac­ter­ized Mr. Burton as the ​“ring leader” of the crew. For Ms. Townsend, ​“that descrip­tion shaped every­thing,” say­ing that ​“it shaped how the evi­dence was viewed, how respon­si­bil­i­ty was assigned, and how pun­ish­ment was jus­ti­fied. I believed it. The jury believed. I no longer believe it was true.”

The dis­par­i­ty between Mr. Burton’s and Mr. DeBruce’s sen­tences weighs on her. ​“For more than 30 years, Mr. Burton has remained under a sen­tence of death,” she wrote. ​“Continuing to pur­sue his exe­cu­tion does not bring back the life that was lost. It does not make Alabama safer. It only deep­ens an injus­tice that began decades ago.” Ms. Townsend believes Mr. Burton has served his time and should be home with his fam­i­ly. ​“But, at the very least, he does not deserve to die for a shoot­ing he did not commit.”

Tori Battle was nine years old when her father was killed. In a December 24, 2025, op-ed, she ques­tioned the state’s deci­sion to seek an exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Burton. ​“Why is the state prepar­ing to exe­cute Charles Burton, a man who did not kill my father,” she wrote. Ms. Battle also not­ed that Mr. Burton had left the store when her father was shot, and ​“there is no evi­dence that [Mr.] Burton knew, or had any intent, that a shoot­ing would occur.” She added that in 2025, the Attorney General’s Victims’ Assistance Office noti­fied her that the state would be seek­ing an exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Burton, and she told them she opposed the exe­cu­tion. She wrote, ​“I was told my opin­ion did not mat­ter. As the victim’s child, I was not con­sult­ed about mer­cy, only about logis­tics.” For Ms. Battle, her under­stand­ing of jus­tice has evolved and as child she ​“believed jus­tice meant pun­ish­ment,” but she has since ​“learned that jus­tice can­not be reduced to final­i­ty. A sys­tem that val­ues pro­ce­dur­al rigid­i­ty over truth demon­strates to [her] that it does not revere justice.”

Reporting from 2019 indi­cates three jurors who sen­tenced Mr. Burton to death have signed affi­davits stat­ing they would not oppose a sen­tence reduc­tion giv­en that Mr. DeBruce’s sen­tence was reduced. Of the six men involved in the rob­bery, Mr. Burton remains the only one fac­ing exe­cu­tion. Three are serv­ing prison sen­tences, one has been released, and one has died. Mr. Burton, who uses a wheel­chair, wears a hel­met because of fre­quent falls, and suf­fers from severe rheuma­toid arthri­tis and hepati­tis C, has issued a pub­lic apol­o­gy for his involve­ment in Doug Battle’s death. In 2016 he wrote, ​“I nev­er expect­ed it would end in Doug Battle los­ing his life in mur­der. And I was ter­ri­bly hor­ri­fied when I learned that it did.” In con­ver­sa­tion with the ACLU, Mr. Burton said he wants Mr. Battle’s fam­i­ly ​“to make sure [they] know that [he is] real­ly sor­ry about what hap­pened to Doug,” but ​“he did not kill him.”

Both Ms. Townsend and Ms. Battle have direct­ed their appeals to Gov. Ivey. ​“Clemency exists for cas­es like this,” Ms. Townsend wrote. ​“When the pun­ish­ment sim­ply does not fit the crime, when time has revealed flaws in how a sen­tence was reached, mer­cy serves jus­tice bet­ter than death.”