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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — <\/span>Alabama has scheduled a March execution date for a man sentenced to death for a fatal shooting during a 1991 robbery even though he didn’t pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n Gov. Kay Ivey on Thursday set a March 12 execution using nitrogen gas for Charles \u201cSonny\u201d Burton, 75. Burton was convicted as an accomplice in the shooting death of Doug Battle, a customer who was killed during an Aug. 16 robbery that year of an auto parts store in Talladega. <\/p>\n Burton did not shoot Battle and was not in the AutoZone store at the time of the fatal shooting. However, prosecutors depicted him as the ringleader of the robbery and sought a death sentence for him. Derrick DeBruce, the man who fired the gun also was sentenced to death but later had his sentence reduced<\/a> to life imprisonment and died in prison. <\/p>\n A cross-section of people, including one of the victim\u2019s children and some jurors, had urged the governor to consider clemency<\/a> for Burton. They argued it would be unfair to execute Burton when the triggerman ended up receiving a lesser sentence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are very disappointed that Governor Ivey has opted to set an execution date for Mr. Burton. But we hope and pray that she, like Oklahoma Governor Stitt did in November,<\/a> still changes her mind and stops this unjust execution of a man who has never taken a life,” Matt Schulz, Burton\u2019s attorney, said. <\/p>\n In the letter notifying the prison commissioner of the date, Ivey wrote that she has no current plans to grant clemency but maintains the authority to \u201cgrant a reprieve or commutation, if necessary, at any time before the execution is carried out.\u201d<\/p>\n Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office had opposed the clemency request. His office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. <\/p>\n \u201cBurton was convicted of capital murder in April 1992 and the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. That conviction and sentence have been upheld at every level,\u201d a spokesperson for the office said in an earlier statement. <\/p>\n Schulz noted that in seeking to uphold a death sentence for DeBruce, the state had argued in a 2015 court filing that its would be \u201carguably unjust\u201d to affirm a death sentence for Burton but not the person who killed Battle. <\/p>\n Ivey has granted clemency<\/a> once since taking office in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n