MONTGOMERY, Ala. — As Alabama moves closer to carrying out the execution of a 75-year-old man who did not fire the fatal shot, an extraordinary plea for mercy has emerged from two unlikely voices: a former juror who voted for death and the daughter of the man who was killed.
In an unusual appeal, the former juror and the daughter of the victim are urging Gov. Kay Ivey to halt the impending execution of Charles “Sonny” Burton, whom both the state and his attorneys acknowledge did not pull the trigger, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Alabama Supreme Court authorized Ivey to set an execution date for Burton on Jan. 22, 2026, for his role in a 1991 robbery. Burton was convicted under Alabama’s felony murder statute for the death of Doug Battle, who was shot by another participant, Derrick DeBruce, after Burton had already left the scene.
DeBruce, the acknowledged shooter, had his own death sentence overturned in 2002 and was resentenced to life without parole.
Priscilla Townsend, who served on the jury that sentenced Burton to death in 1992, recently wrote a public op-ed expressing profound regret, the ACLU reports. “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,” Townsend wrote. “At the time, I did not fully understand what that meant. I do now.”
Townsend detailed how the prosecution’s portrayal of Burton as the “ringleader” influenced the jury, a characterization she now disavows. “I no longer believe it was true,” she stated.
She highlighted the stark disparity in fates between Burton, who remains on death row, and DeBruce, who is serving a life sentence. “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,” the ACLU reported Townsend wrote.
In a separate plea, Tori Battle, who was 9 years old when her father was killed, has also publicly opposed the execution. In a December 2025 op-ed, she asked, “Why is the state preparing to execute Charles Burton, a man who did not kill my father?” according to the ACLU.
Battle noted that when notified by the state of the execution plans, she voiced her opposition but was told her opinion “did not matter.” “As the victim’s child, I was not consulted about mercy, only about logistics,” she wrote.
The ACLU notes that Burton, who uses a wheelchair and suffers from multiple severe health conditions, has publicly apologized for his role in the crime.
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.”
He has expressed a desire for the Battle family to know he is “really sorry about what happened to Doug,” while maintaining “he did not kill him.”
Of the six men involved in the robbery, Burton is the only one now facing execution.
Citing the ACLU’s reporting, three of the original jurors have since signed affidavits stating they would not oppose a sentence reduction given the shooter’s resentencing.
Both Townsend and Battle have directed their appeals to Ivey’s clemency power.
“Clemency exists for cases like this,” Townsend concluded in her op-ed, as reported by the ACLU. “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.”
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