Charles “Sonny” Burton, 75, has never personally killed anyone — a fact that has never been disputed. Yet on Thursday, the state of Alabama is scheduled to execute him.
“I shouldn’t die for something I didn’t do,” Burton told NBC News during a phone interview Monday from William C. Holman Correctional Facility, where Alabama’s execution chamber is located. Burton has spent more than three decades on death row.
His death sentence stems from a controversial legal principle known as the felony murder rule, which allows prosecutors to hold anyone involved in certain crimes — such as robbery or burglary — legally responsible for a killing that occurs during the offense, even if they were not the person who carried it out.
“Felony murder allows everyone involved in the underlying crime to be treated by the legal system as though they committed an intentional killing,” said Nazgol Ghandnoosh, director of research at The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice advocacy organization.
In 1991, Burton was one of six men involved in the robbery of an AutoZone store in Talladega, Alabama. The robbery ended in tragedy when a customer, Doug Battle, was shot and killed.
Burton admits he entered the store armed with a gun and took money from a safe in the back room before leaving the area. However, he has consistently maintained that he did not shoot anyone.
