Charles ‘Sonny’ Burton is slated for execution. He hopes the Alabama governor will grant him clemency

Alabama's governor granted clemency to a man sentenced to death for three decades, a rare move that prevents the accomplice in a 1991 murder from being executed Thursday. Gov. Kay Ivey, announcing the commutation of Charles Burton's death sentence, said she could not “proceed in good conscience” with the execution because he was not the shooter. He said his sentence will now be life in prison without parole. "I believe it would be unfair for a participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not," Ivey said in a statement Tuesday. "Now he will receive the same punishment as the perpetrator of the trigger." After learning of Ivey's decision, Burton said in a statement through his attorney: "Just saying thank you doesn't seem like much. But it's what I can give you. And I appreciate it. Thank you, Governor." Lois Harris, Burton's daughter, told CNN she feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. "I'm grateful. I'm glad he made that decision because it was the right decision," she said of Ivey, through tears. During a recent phone call with Burton before the governor's decision, the topics of conversation were light: He recalled growing up in Alabama, chatted about how he likes to write letters, and offered wisdom he believes the next generation needs to hear. Burton, 75, known as “Sonny” to his family and friends, was sentenced to death for the murder of Douglas Battle. "I didn't kill anyone, that's true, but I made a mistake by being a part of the crime," Burton told CNN in an interview last week. "I made a mistake and it seems like all my friends have forgiven me. I hope my friends remember me and remember that I was a true friend, a good friend." In August 1991, Burton and five other men robbed an AutoZone store in Talladega. One of the men, Derrick DeBruce, shot and killed Battle. Although he was not the shooter and was not in the store at the time of the murder, Burton was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by a jury in 1992. DeBruce also received a death sentence, but it was reduced to life in prison without parole in 2014 after she successfully argued that her trial attorneys were ineffective. He died in prison in 2020. Mercy is rare As the clock ticked toward his execution date, Burton's advocates called for his execution to be stopped, either by the U.S. Supreme Court or by the governor, whom Burton had asked to grant him clemency and commute his sentence to life in prison without parole. Burton's attorney of more than 17 years, Matt Schulz, called the commutation "remarkable." He was visiting his client when news of the governor's decision came. Burton cried and “was overjoyed” when he found out he was no longer legally on death row, Schulz said. "He knows he may not have long to live... but he's so happy that it will be God who will bring him home, not the state," Schulz told CNN, adding that Burton is "extremely grateful" to Ivey. Typically, death row inmates are moved to a different cell on the Tuesday before their execution, but that won't happen now in Burton's case, his attorney said. Instead, his family will still be able to visit him on Wednesday and he could be moved to a new prison in the coming months, he said. The victim's daughter – identified as Tori in Burton's clemency petition – and some of the jurors in Burton's case had supported his commutation request. In a letter to Ivey, Tori wrote that her father "was strong, but valued peace. He didn't believe in revenge. And in that sense, I am very much his daughter." "I don't see how this execution will contribute to my healing. And it disturbs me to think of a man who is now elderly, being executed, who if he had had a better lawyer, probably would never have ended up on death row,"