A 75-year-old man, Charles “Sonny” Burton, is facing execution by the state of Alabama, although the state has already admitted that he did not commit the crime he was accused of. Advocates are asking Gov. Kay Ivey to halt the planned execution scheduled for March.

According to ABC News, Burton has been on death row for more than 30 years for his role in a 1991 robbery at an auto parts store where a customer, Doug Battle, was killed during the crime. He and his accomplice, Derrick DeBruce, along with four other men, took part in the robbery, but it was DeBruce who shot and killed Battle.

Burton was outside the store when the killing occurred.

Both Burton and DeBruce were given death sentences, but DeBruce was later resentenced to life imprisonment; however, Burton is still on death row, despite not killing Battle. The shooting happened Aug. 16, 1991, at an AutoZone in Talladega.

The Alabama Supreme Court authorized the governor to set an execution date for Burton using nitrogen gas. Yet Battle’s daughter and several jurors from the trial are asking Gov. Ivey to grant Burton clemency, arguing that the case raises fundamental questions of fairness.

The man’s daughter, Tori, who was only nine at the time of his death, has asked Ivey to “consider extending grace to Mr. Burton and granting him clemency.”

Meanwhile, six of the eight living jurors are not opposed to commutation, according to the clemency petition. Three are saying that they never would have recommended a death sentence if DeBruce was getting a lesser sentence.

“It’s absolutely not fair. You don’t execute someone who did not pull the trigger,” one of the jurors, Priscilla Townsend, said in a telephone interview.

Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office is opposing the clemency request.

“Burton was convicted of capital murder in April 1992, and that the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. That conviction and sentence have been upheld at every level,” a spokesperson said.

Burton’s attorney, Matt Schulz, said, “We hope and pray that Governor Ivey recognizes that this case slipped through the cracks. It would be wrong to execute a man who did not even see the shooting take place, after the state agreed to resentence the shooter to life without parole, and this is simply not the kind of case most people think of when they envision the death penalty being carried out.”

Burton’s accomplice, DeBruce, died in prison in 2020.