In the Room Where Death Row Prisoners Say Final Goodbyes, He Learned He Would Live

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey commuted the death sentence of Charles "Sonny" Burton, 75, halting his execution just two days before it was scheduled to occur. Burton learned of the commutation while meeting with his lawyers in the visiting room at Holman Correctional Facility, when his paralegal received a call from a reporter about the governor's press release. The commutation marked only the third time in Alabama's modern death penalty history that a governor granted clemency to someone facing execution, despite Ivey presiding over 25 executions since 2017. Burton had been condemned for his role in a 1991 armed robbery where another man fatally shot victim Doug Battle, though Burton never pulled the trigger and was outside the building when the shooting occurred. His co-defendant who actually committed the murder, Derrick DeBruce, had his death sentence reduced to life without parole in 2015, leaving Burton as the sole person facing execution for the crime.