Overview
- Burton was convicted under Alabama’s accomplice liability for a 1991 Talladega AutoZone robbery in which customer Doug Battle was killed.
- The shooter, Derrick DeBruce, had his death sentence vacated for inadequate counsel, was resentenced to life, and later died in prison.
- Multiple jurors from Burton’s 1992 trial and Battle’s daughter have urged clemency, while Ivey’s office says she has no plans to grant it and the attorney general opposes it.
- Alabama plans to use nitrogen hypoxia, first employed by the state in 2024, after at least nine court reviews left Burton’s conviction and death sentence intact.
- Burton, now 75, says he neither ordered nor carried out the killing and has apologized to the Battle family, as advocates note at least 22 executions of non-shooters nationwide.