Alabama death row inmate asks Supreme Court to halt next week’s execution

Attorneys for Alabama death row inmate Charles Lee “Sonny” Burton are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case, arguing he was deprived of choosing his trial defense and that the state introduced inadmissible evidence during that trial. 

In a separate filing addressed to Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Burton’s attorneys also requested a stay of execution until that review is done. 

Burton’s attorneys said in their filing on Friday that the Talladega County trial court deprived Burton of counsel by forcing his attorneys at the time to call two of his co-defendants as witnesses, even though it was “against their strategic judgment.”

“Prejudice ensued. The co-defendants denied even knowing Mr. Burton, and the State introduced otherwise inadmissible evidence to show they lied,” the petition said. 

The district court and Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals previously rejected the argument, saying precedent “did not clearly establish that witness choice is counsel’s strategic decision.” 

When he tried to have his argument heard again in 2019 after the Supreme Court decided McCoy v. Louisiana – which gives a defendant the right to choose the objective of his defense – the court dismissed his motion as an “unauthorized successive habeas petition” and stated he would not be granted a certificate of appealability. 

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office filed an opposition to Burton’s petition on Tuesday, saying Burton’s execution “was long overdue.” 

Attorney General Steve Marshall argued that a stay of execution would undermine the public’s trust in justice, and that the Supreme Court should uphold lower courts rulings denying Burton’s petition - a petition Marshall said was delayed, as it came less than two weeks before the execution. 

Burton, 75, is set to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia on March 12. He was convicted in a 1991 murder at a Talladega AutoZone that resulted from a robbery. 

During the robbery, a customer, Doug Battle, was shot and died as a result of a gunshot wound to the lower back, according to the court record. Burton’s co-defendant in the case, Derrick DeBruce, was the actual shooter, but ultimately was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. 

Burton admits his involvement in the robbery; but according to his clemency petition, he’d already left the AutoZone when Battle was killed by DeBruce. 

Along with Burton and DeBruce, there were 4 other co-defendants in the case, but they were not sentenced to death. 

The U.S. Supreme Court justices have reviewed Burton’s case before. 

In 2018, his attorneys petitioned the nation’s highest court, challenging the constitutionality of Alabama’s capital sentencing scheme, and arguing it was a violation of Burton’s Eighth amendment right protecting against cruel and unusual punishment to sentence the non-shooter to death. 

That petition was denied. 

This current petition to the Supreme Court, filed less than 2 weeks before Burton’s scheduled execution, comes amid growing calls for Gov. Kay Ivey to grant clemency to Burton, including from the victim’s daughter, faith leaders, national advocacy groups, jurors on the case, and a retired corrections officer who knew Burton while working on death row.

Source: AL.com, Staff, March 4, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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