Atmore, Alabama - Alabama Governor Kay Ivey on Tuesday commuted the death sentence of Charles "Sonny" Burton, who was set to be executed for participating in a 1991 murder even though he was not in the building at the time of the shooting.
Ivey has reduced Burton's sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"I cannot proceed in good conscience with the execution of Mr. Burton under such disparate circumstances. I believe it would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not," the Republican governor said in a statement.
Burton had been sentenced to death as an alleged accomplice in the fatal shooting of a customer named Doug Battle during the robbery of an AutoZone store in Talladega. He had left the store before another man, Derrick DeBruce, fired the gun.
DeBruce had been resentenced to life in prison and has since died behind bars.
Burton was scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on Thursday evening. He is 75 years old and in a wheelchair.
UN experts have condemned the use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment as cruel and inhumane.
Advocates thank Governor Ivey for preventing "grave injustice"
The Council on American-Islamic Relations celebrated the good news for Burton, who is Muslim.
CAIR Alabama Staff Attorney Britton O’Shields said, "We thank Governor Ivey for sparing Mr. Burton's life and preventing a grave injustice from being committed. Mr. Burton did not commit the crime for which he was sentenced to death while the man who did didn’t receive the death penalty."
"He changed his life and became a faith leader, a mentor and an example of redemption to other inmates. Taking his life would be unconscionable."
Alice Marie Johnson, whom President Donald Trump named as his administration's "pardon czar," praised Ivey for her "courageous and common sense leadership" in commuting Burton's death sentence.