I Lost My Father to Violence—Executing the Wrong Man Won’t Bring Justice

At the tender age of 9, I lost my father, Doug Battle, when he was killed during a robbery. Like many children faced with sudden violence, I asked a simple question with no answer: Why did you have to kill him?

Today, I am asking a different question… one that should concern all of us.

Why is the state preparing to execute Charles Burton, a man who did not kill my father?

In 1991, six men robbed an AutoZone store in Alabama. Mr. Burton had already left the store with the money. Derrick DeBruce remained inside and made his own decision, in accordance with no one, to shoot my father as he lay face-down on the floor alongside employees and customers. There is no evidence that Mr. Burton knew, or had any intent, that a shooting would occur.

Executing a man who did not commit the killing does not heal wounds or strengthen public trust. It weakens it.

Both men were initially sentenced to death. Later, DeBruce, the shooter, had his sentence overturned and the state agreed to resentence him to life without parole. Mr. Burton, the non-shooter, remains on death row.

If this is allowed to stand, this would represent a fundamental flaw in how capital punishment is applied in America.

Mr. Burton is now 75 years old, wheelchair-bound, and suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis. He is frail, in declining health, and poses no threat to public safety. Yet the state plans to execute him using nitrogen hypoxia, a method that raises serious ethical and constitutional concerns.

As a child, I believed justice meant punishment. I thought executions would bring closure. Over time, I learned that justice cannot be reduced to finality. A system that values procedural rigidity over truth demonstrates to me that it does not revere justice.

Mr. Burton’s continued presence on death row does not reflect a moral judgment. From what I understand, it has persisted in part because technical rules prevent courts from correcting past errors. When a legal system allows a man who did not commit the killing to die because the process itself blocks reconsideration, it reveals how fragile justice can be.

Earlier this year, I was informed that the state intended to move forward with Mr. Burton’s execution. When I was contacted by the Attorney General's Victims' Assistance Office and said I opposed the execution, I was told my opinion did not matter. As the victim’s child, I was not consulted about mercy, only about logistics.

My opposition to this execution is not a betrayal of my father. It is an affirmation of the values he lived by, and that I have tried to instill in my children. Justice can be measured by our commitment to truth and our willingness to show mercy.

Executing a man who did not commit the killing does not heal wounds or strengthen public trust. It weakens it.

I wrestle with my feelings on whether capital punishment should exist at all, but if it must be applied, it should be done so with restraint, proportionality, and humility. This case fails on all three counts.

I lost my father to violence. Another death will not bring him back. It will only deepen my trauma and the moral cost we all share.