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'Debases the Democratic Process,' Sotomayor Warns as Supreme Court Allows Racist Alabama Map
"Just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the court today doubles down on chaos," wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Jun 03, 2026
The US Supreme Court late Tuesday gave Alabama a green light to use an aggressively gerrymandered congressional map that a lower court said was "tainted by intentional race-based discrimination."
The unsigned decision, from which the high court's three liberal justices dissented, enables Alabama's Republican-dominated government to replace its current congressional map, which has two majority-Black districts, with a map that the US Supreme Court struck down in 2023. That map has just one majority-Black district.
In her dissenting opinion, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that "just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the court today doubles down on chaos."
"In addition to being wrong on the merits, the court’s decision inflicts two grave harms on the public," wrote Sotomayor. "It debases the democratic process by upending Alabama’s entire election in the name of permitting Alabama to discriminate against Black Alabamians. It also corrodes the rule of law by rewarding Alabama’s gamesmanship and outright defiance of court orders."
The liberal justice noted that in order to switch to the map previously struck down by the high court, Alabama election officials "will have to reassign hundreds of thousands of voters across the state to new congressional districts."
"Three of Alabama’s counties will be particularly hard hit because they are split across two congressional districts," Sotomayor noted. "These counties have about 600,000 registered voters between them (roughly 15% of the state’s total number of registered voters).”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, postponed US House primary elections in the wake of the Supreme Court's April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which severely narrowed the 1965 Voting Rights Act’s protections against racial discrimination and paved the way for Alabama and other states to impose new maps ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“The Supreme Court’s shameful ruling allowing Alabama to move forward with a gerrymander that was drawn with the explicit intent to dilute Black voting power—as found by a panel of judges that included two Trump appointees—is an absolute affront to the founding principles of our democracy, and wipes out whatever was left of the court’s credibility,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation. “This country deserves better, and we must continue to work toward federal legislation that not only bans partisan and racial gerrymandering but also ensures that our rights cannot be undermined by captured courts.”
The ruling drew condemnation from the two Democrats in Alabama's US congressional delegation. Rep. Shomari Figures, who was elected to the US House under the independently drawn map that Alabama Republicans are working to replace, said in a statement that "the Supreme Court has now confirmed that there is no longer a Voting Rights Act in America, and states are essentially free to discriminate against minority voters with no consequences."
"This is a dangerous ruling that sets the state and this nation back decades," said Figures.
Rep. Terri Sewell called the ruling "just the latest in a pattern of outrageous Supreme Court decisions that help Republicans desperately cling to power ahead of the midterm elections while diluting Black voices and erasing decades of hard-fought civil rights progress."
"No matter how hard Alabama state officials may try, they will not succeed in silencing our voices," said Sewell. "We will not go back to the Jim Crow era. The fight for fair representation continues."
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Citing 'Intentional Race-Based Discrimination,' Court Blocks Alabama's GOP-Rigged Electoral Map
“We reject in the strongest possible terms the state’s attempt to finish its intentional decision to dilute minority votes with a veneer of legislative regularity," said the panel of three judges—two of them Trump appointees.
May 26, 2026
A three-judge panel on Tuesday temporarily blocked Alabama from using a Republican-drawn congressional map created to effectively disenfranchise Black people, who make up more than one-quarter of the population of a state that, by GOP design, has just one majority-Black House district.
United States Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus, a nominee of former President Bill Clinton, and District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer—both of whom were nominated by President Donald Trump—granted a motion by Alabama state Sen. Bobby Singleton (D-24); Black voters, and groups including the national and state ACLU, the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Legal Defense Fund, and Southern Poverty Law Center to block the state from using a racially rigged congressional map approved by the GOP-led Legislature in 2023.
The panel unanimously found that Alabama could not use the map because it “represents an intentional effort to crack the Black population in Alabama.”
“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the judges wrote.
🧵 The Supreme Court's Callais ruling made it harder to prove in court that a legislative map dilutes minority voting strength.But a three-judge panel today confirmed that intentional racial gerrymanders can still be struck down by federal courts.Here’s what you need to know about Alabama 👇
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— Democracy Docket (@democracydocket.com) May 26, 2026 at 10:31 AM
“Cracking” is the splitting of communities of color to dilute their power in a given district. The related practice of "packing" refers to placing people of color in the same district in order to prevent them from having greater political power in surrounding districts.
The same three-judge panel had blocked a previous attempt by Alabama Republicans to implement a congressional map lacking a second Black opportunity district in defiance of a US Supreme Court ruling affirming a lower court's order to create such a district.
"We do not lightly intrude in state affairs, but our previous review of the undisputed evidence left us in no doubt that Alabama’s legislatively enacted plan (the “2023 Plan”) intentionally discriminated based on race in violation of the Constitution," the three judges wrote in Tuesday's decision. "Our re-examination in light of Callais yields the same conclusion."
Last month, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in Louisiana v. Callais that the Southern state's congressional map is “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander" because race—specifically, ensuring representation for Black voters—was the predominant factor in redistricting. The decision ironically voided the last remaining provision of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which allows voters of color to challenge racially discriminatory electoral maps in court.
Citing Callais, Alabama and other Southern states rushed to redraw their congressional maps to dilute Black voting power and satisfy requests from President Donald Trump for GOP-controlled state legislatures to rig districts for partisan gain ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Callais was followed by another 6-3 US Supreme Court ruling earlier this month, which found that Alabama could use the 2023 map, prompting liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor to dissent and point out that the high court previously found that “Alabama violated the 14th Amendment by intentionally diluting the votes of Black voters.”
That ruling came two days after Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey had signed legislation authorizing new primary elections if federal courts agreed to rescind the creation of the second Black opportunity district. Ivey's signature came despite ongoing primaries in Alabama.
Black voters sought a temporary restraining order against the 2023 map, arguing that the 14th Amendment still banned redistricting that was deliberately discriminatory, regardless of Callais.
“Alabama cannot use Callais to legitimize its pre-Callais decision to double down on the discriminatory vote dilution that we and the Supreme Court found,” the three judges wrote Tuesday. “And it cannot use Callais to legitimize the series of specific and unusual decisions it made to entrench that dilution."
Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state would immediately appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court.
“Know this—in my mind, it is not a matter of whether we win this case, only when," he asserted.
US Rep. Shomari Figures (D-Ala.), whose House seat would almost certainly be usurped by a Republican under the GOP-redrawn map, said in a social media post following Tuesday's ruling that "this is a significant step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before this fight is settled."
NAACP Legal Defense Fund litigation director Deuel Ross told The Associated Press that Tuesday's ruling “again vindicated the constitutional rights of voters in the Black Belt, and our clients look forward to voting under a fair map this fall.”
Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation—an advocacy group supporting fair maps—said in a statement, "Justice prevailed today; Alabama must use its 2023 court-adopted map—a map with two Black opportunity districts—in this year's elections."
"Make no mistake, the fight for justice is far from over in states across the country where politicians are enacting gerrymanders on top of gerrymanders to erase equal representation for communities of color," she continued. "The message from this panel is clear: Courts must fulfill their independent duty to protect voters’ rights, not just rubber-stamp state officials’ efforts to use the Supreme Court’s Callais decision as an excuse to draw Black voters out of a say in our democracy."
"Politicians aiming to enact new gerrymanders in South Carolina, Georgia, and elsewhere should take note," Jenkins added.
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In Alabama, Organizers Declare 'Day One' of Mass Mobilization to Stop GOP Attacks on Voting Rights
Labor rights and voting rights groups were among those who gathered in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama for the All Roads Lead to the South Day of Action.
May 16, 2026
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
In a show of resistance to the US Supreme Court's dismantling of the Voting Rights Act and Republicans' efforts to redraw congressional districts across southern states in a bid to retain power despite their party's unpopular agenda, labor and voting rights groups were among those that arrived in Montgomery, Alabama Saturday for "Day One" of a mass mobilization against GOP lawmakers who they said are intent on "resurrecting Jim Crow."
While groups including the Movement for Black Lives and National Jobs With Justice boarded buses in Atlanta Saturday morning to join more than 250 organizations at a rally at the Alabama State Capitol, other organizers began the "All Roads Lead to the South" National Day of Action with a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama—the same site of the historic 1965 voting rights march that became known as Bloody Sunday.
"We started here because we wanted to stand on sacred ground and consecrate ourselves," said organizer LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the group Black Voters Matter. "You cannot fight hate with hate, you have to stand in the spirit of love, and so look around—this is what love looks like."We’re joining the All Roads Lead to the South coalition in Alabama today to show that We the People will not allow a Jim Crow 2.0.
Today’s march is a powerful reminder: courage and community are how we will get through this.
WATCH: https://t.co/9Z5DOblam1
— Democracy Forward (@DemocracyFwd) May 16, 2026
The march and rally were organized in response to a ramp-up of efforts by the Republican Party and right-wing courts, including the far-right majority on the US Supreme Court, to redraw electoral maps in states including Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee.
The mass mobilization was organized after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Louisiana v. Callais last month, effectively eviscerating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which has held that voters of color have the right to legally challenge racially discriminatory congressional maps.
The Supreme Court this week allowed Alabama to revert back to an electoral map with just one majority-Black district out of seven, despite that fact that 26% of Alabama residents are Black.
Tennessee Republicans also adopted a new electoral map that splits up the state's only majority-Black district, and the Missouri Supreme Court approved a congressional map that targets the state's 5th District, represented by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
Arriving in Montgomery, Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones (D-52) said voters across the South need "a united front... to take on this new Confederacy... We know what the intent of these governors and state lawmakers are, to dismantle every gain made during the civil rights movement and dismantle the crown jewel of the civil rights movement, which was the Voting Rights Act."
Rep. @brotherjones_ in Montgomery: “We’re here united to take on this new confederacy, 60 years after the Selma March… because we know their intent is to dismantle everything gained during the civil rights movement.” pic.twitter.com/op87I4g8hT
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) May 16, 2026
"Our parents and grandparents marched, organized, bled, and won," said organizers ahead of the rally. "The Voting Rights Act was theirs. The fight to keep it is ours. Right now, state by state, that law is being dismantled. We know that we cannot fight the same battles the same way. New times demand new tactics—economic pressure, political organizing, community action, culture, and faith. But we know what we know: Organizing works. And we have unfinished business."
At the rally, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) emphasized the need for solidarity from across the US, with supporters of voting rights mobilizing in states near and far from the South—the current center of the GOP's attacks.
"They think they can draw us out of power. They do not know the sleeping giant they just awakened," said Ocasio-Cortez. "When Black Americans have the right to vote and that vote is protected, our schools get funded. When voting rights are protected, healthcare gets expanded. When voting rights are protected, our country moves forward. And Montgomery, that's what they're actually afraid of."
AOC: “It is time for the North to pull up to the South and let them know exactly what they have uncorked with this injustice. They think they can draw us out of power. They do not know the sleeping giant they just awakened. What they thought was the final blow is actually just… pic.twitter.com/kQvixR2Olv
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) May 16, 2026
Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, said labor groups joined the mass mobilization because "the bridges we have to cross are not only in Selma."
"Jim Crow didn't just come for the ballot. It came for anyone who tried to organize and have a voice," said Smiley. "Efforts to rollback equality and democracy are happening in the occupied cities, shop floors, and now the halls of the Capitol across the country."
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) called for the rally to mark the beginning of a "Freedom Summer," with rallies at "every State House" in the country to pressure state legislators to end the GOP gerrymandering efforts, which President Donald Trump has explicitly called for.
"Let's declare a Freedom Summer and go to every courthouse this summer, to tell those legislators, 'We will not go back,'" said Sewell.
Dozens of satellite events were also taking place across the US on Saturday.
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No Kings Movement and 'All Roads Lead to the South' to Protest GOP Voting Rights Attacks
"The politicians attacking voting rights today are clinging to a shrinking vision of America rooted in fear, exclusion, and minority rule."
May 12, 2026
Republican state lawmakers are seizing on the US Supreme Court's recent gutting of the Voting Rights Act to continue President Donald Trump's gerrymandering spree, including in Alabama, where "All Roads Lead to the South," the No Kings coalition, community members, faith leaders, and other organizations plan to come together on Saturday, May 16, in protest.
They are set to start at 9:00 am CT at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, named for a former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon and the site of Bloody Sunday, "for prayer and remembrance—on sacred ground, in reverence for those who marched in 1965, in gratitude for the moral courage they showed the nation, and in faith that the same spirit that moved them still moves in us."
The organizers then intend to hold a rally at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery from 1:00-5:00 pm. People across the United States outraged by GOP attacks on voting rights are also planning solidarity actions throughout the day.
"Sixty years after Bloody Sunday, we are once again being called to meet this moment with collective action. The attacks on voting rights across the South are not isolated incidents, they are part of a coordinated effort to weaken Black political power," said Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown, co-founders of Black Voters Matter Fund, a leading partner organization of All Roads Lead to the South, in a Tuesday statement.
"But we have faced these challenges before, and we know our power," the pair continued. "Alabama has always been sacred ground in the fight for freedom, and this moment demands that we rise together once again. We are proud to stand with the No Kings coalition and people across the nation to make clear that our communities will not be pushed backward, our voices will not be silenced, and our power will not be denied."
Since Trump returned to office last year, the No Kings movement has organized three national days of action—in June, October, and March. Americans also held thousands of protests nationwide on May Day, or International Workers' Day, earlier this month.
"What is happening right now is deliberate, coordinated, and being driven by Republican politicians committed to abusing power and rigging the system to hold control for themselves and silence Black voters," the No Kings Steering Committee said Tuesday. "They plan on overturning every protection available for Black voters and will not be satisfied until they reinstate every Jim Crow-era law."
"That's why the No Kings coalition is joining in solidarity with All Roads Lead to the South this Saturday in Alabama and across the country for an emergency national protest against the attacks on voting rights by the Supreme Court and the swift effort by Republican-controlled states to disenfranchise millions of Black voters," the committee continued.
On May 16th, join civil and voting rights groups in a National day of Action in Montgomery, Alabama. Go to allroadsleadtothesouth.com for more details. #votingrights #50501movement
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— 50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑 (@50501movement.bsky.social) May 9, 2026 at 12:48 PM
GOP state lawmakers in Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas have already responded to demands from Trump and fears of losing a slim majority in the US House of Representatives by redrawing their congressional districts to favor Republicans in the November midterm elections.
Democratic state leaders in California and Virginia have tried to fight the Trump-led GOP's mid-decade redistricting by enacting new voter-approved congressional districts that favor Democrats, though both of those maps face legal challenges. Party leaders in Virginia on Monday asked the US Supreme Court to block a recent ruling against the Democratic effort.
In a case about Louisiana's districts that predated Trump's push, the US Supreme Court last month found that the state map was an "unconstitutional racial gerrymander" and eviscerated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, leading Republican Gov. Jeff Landry to suspend primary elections, even though absentee ballots had already gone out.
Tennessee lawmakers swiftly took advantage of an opportunity from that ruling by targeting their state's only majority-Black congressional district, in Memphis. As Tennesseans sued over the new map on Monday, the US Supreme Court's right-wing justices cleared the way for Alabama legislators to break up their state's majority-Black district.
"The politicians attacking voting rights today are clinging to a shrinking vision of America rooted in fear, exclusion, and minority rule. They are trying to preserve a past this country has already rejected," said the No Kings panel. "In this country, we do not answer to kings—not in the White House and not in our state houses. Power belongs to the people, and we the people will decide."
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As Tennessee Voters Sue Over Gerrymandering, Supreme Court Clears Way for New Alabama Map
"Boy, it's a complete mystery why the public thinks the court is making partisan political decisions," quipped one law professor following the ruling on Alabama's redistricting.
May 11, 2026
The US Supreme Court's right-wing majority Monday opened the door for Alabama to eliminate a majority-Black congressional district before this year's midterm elections in a decision that came as Tennessee voters sued to stop their state's racially rigged redistricting.
The nation's high court issued a 6-3 order with no explanation allowing Alabama officials to revert to a congressional map which, despite the state population being roughly 26% African American, has just one majority-Black district out of seven. The order came just a week before Alabama's primary election and less than three years after the same court ordered the state to create a second majority-Black district.
In that case, Allen v. Milligan, two right-wing members—Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh—joined their liberal colleagues who sided with Black voters in defense of the Voting Rights Act.
SCOTUS, which ordered Alabama to create a second Black opportunity district just 3 years ago, has lifted that order a week before the primary. The Purcell principle says courts shouldn't permit chaos too close to an election—it's now an open question whether there will even be a primary on schedule.
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— Joyce White Vance (@joycewhitevance.bsky.social) May 11, 2026 at 3:32 PM
Monday's ruling follows last month's Louisiana v. Callais decision, in which the justices ruled 6-3, also along ideological lines, that Louisiana's congressional map is “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander."
The decision ironically voided the last remaining provision of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which allows voters of color to challenge racially discriminatory electoral maps in court.
Dissenting in Monday's decision, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that the high court previously found that "Alabama violated the 14th Amendment by intentionally diluting the votes of Black voters."
"That constitutional finding of intentional discrimination is independent of, and unaffected by, any of the legal issues discussed in Callais," she added.
Earlier on Monday, the ACLU and ACLU of Tennessee filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of three Black voters, the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, the Memphis A. Philip Randolph Institute, and the Equity Alliance seeking to block the state's racially rigged congressional map approved last week by the state Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Lee despite tremendous opposition from African American Tennesseans and their allies.
The lawsuit argues that the new map violates the Constitution by intentionally discriminating against Black voters in Memphis and retaliates against them for exercising their First Amendment right to political expression and association.
As the ACLU of Tennessee explained:
Tennessee has had a Memphis-based congressional district for the better part of a century. The challenged map dismantles that district, which is the state’s only majority-Black congressional district. It divides Black voters in Memphis and Shelby County across three majority-white districts that stretch from Memphis hundreds of miles into central Tennessee, diluting Black Memphians’ votes and stripping those communities of any meaningful voice in Congress...
A white-controlled supermajority of the Tennessee General Assembly enacted the new map targeting Black Memphians over mere days in a special legislative session that had been called after the candidate-qualifying deadline had already run.
"Black voters in Memphis did exactly what the Constitution empowers every American to do, which is to choose their representative,” ACLU of Tennessee executive director Miriar Nemeth said in a statement. “The Legislature’s response was an effort to ensure that those votes never carry the same weight again. The law has a name for this, and it’s not redistricting, it is textbook First Amendment retaliation. And it is, at its heart, racism.”
The Tennessee branch of the NAACP, state Democratic Party, Democratic candidates, and voters have also sued to challenge the redistricting.
The current partisan redistricting war began when President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, who fear losing control of Congress after November's midterms, pushed Texas to enact a mid-decade redistricting. California retaliated with its own voter-approved redraw, and numerous red and blue states have followed suit or announced plans to at least consider doing so.
On Monday, Virginia's Democratic attorney general and party legislative leaders asked the US Supreme Court to block a state high court ruling against a voter-approved redistricting that favors Democrats.
Last week, Roberts dismissed the increasingly prevalent public perception that Supreme Court justices are "political actors."
Chief Justice Roberts bemoans the public's view of the Justices as political actors ...and then offers no explanation at all as the Court sprints to vacate a finding of INTENTIONAL discrimination, interfering with an impending election to let Alabama Rs sneak in a touch more partisan gerrymander.
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— Justin Levitt (@justinlevitt.bsky.social) May 11, 2026 at 3:21 PM
Following Monday's ruling, Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt said sardonically on Bluesky, "Boy, it's a complete mystery why the public thinks the court is making partisan political decisions."
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Citing 'Unjust' Death Sentence, Alabama Gov. Grants Clemency to Sonny Burton
"The state was set to execute Sonny for a crime he didn't commit, but tens of thousands of people nationwide demanded justice—and our voices were heard," said the ACLU.
Mar 10, 2026
Amid nationwide public outcry, Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey—a staunch supporter of capital punishment—on Tuesday spared a death row inmate who did not kill the man for whose murder he was sentenced to die and was scheduled for execution on Thursday.
“I firmly believe that the death penalty is just punishment for society’s most heinous offenders, as shown by the 25 executions I have presided over as governor," Ivey said in a statement. "In order to ensure the continued viability of the death penalty, however, I also believe that a government’s most consequential action must be administered fairly and proportionately."
"Doug Battle was brutally murdered by Derrick DeBruce while shopping in an auto parts store. But DeBruce was ultimately sentenced to life without parole," the governor continued. "Charles Burton did not shoot the victim, did not direct the triggerman to shoot the victim, and had already left the store by the time the shooting occurred. Yet Mr. Burton was set to be executed while DeBruce was allowed to live out his life in prison."
"I cannot proceed in good conscience with the execution of Mr. Burton under such disparate circumstances," Ivey added. "I believe it would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not. To be clear, Mr. Burton will not be eligible for parole and will rightfully spend the remainder of his life behind bars for his role in the robbery that led to the murder of Doug Battle. He will now receive the same punishment as the triggerman."
Burton—who is 75 years old and goes by the name Sonny—has been on Alabama’s death row since 1992, a year after Battle's murder.
"I didn’t kill no one, true enough, but I made a mistake by being part of the crime,” Burton told CNN in an interview last week, anticipating his execution. “I made a mistake, and it seems like all my friends have forgave me. I hope that my friends will remember me and remember that I was a real friend, a good friend.”
While Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall condemned Ivey for sparing a "murderer," both death penalty supporters and opponents welcomed the commutation.
BREAKING: Alabama Governor Kay Ivey commuted the death sentence of Sonny Burton.The state was set to execute Sonny for a crime he didn't commit, but tens of thousands of people nationwide demanded justice — and our voices were heard.
— ACLU (@aclu.org) March 10, 2026 at 9:18 AM
“It’s absolutely not fair. You don’t execute someone who did not pull the trigger,” Priscilla Townsend, one of three jurors in Burton's trial who asked Ivey for clemency, told the Associated Press, adding that she supports executing "the worst of the worst."
Tori Battle, Doug Battle's daughter, had also pleaded for clemency for Burton.
"No one from the state has ever sat with me to explain why Alabama believes it must execute a man who did not kill my father," Battle wrote in an article published last December in the Montgomery Advertiser. "My love for my father does not require another death, especially one that defies reason."
Laura Burton, executive director of the US Campaign to End the Death Penalty, said in a statement Tuesday: "We are grateful that Gov. Ivey recognized that Charles 'Sonny' Burton should not be executed. The death penalty process is deeply flawed when someone who was not present for the killing faces execution, while the person who committed the murder does not. It is uplifting to see that more and more governors across the ideological spectrum are recognizing problems with death penalty cases."
Last November, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Still—also a staunch death penalty advocate—granted clemency to Tremane Wood with just minutes to spare before his scheduled execution for a murder his late brother confessed to committing.
Last year, Ivey also commuted the death sentence of Robin “Rocky” Myers to life in prison without parole, citing serious doubts about his guilt.
There are still 155 people on Alabama's death row, according to the state Department of Corrections. The state has executed five people since the beginning of 2025—one by lethal injection and four by nitrogen gas, a method rejected by veterinarians for euthanizing animals and condemned by United Nations human rights experts as possible torture.
Demetrius Minor, executive director of the death penalty abolition group Conservatives Concerned, said Tuesday that “we want to thank Gov. Ivey for granting clemency for Charles 'Sonny' Burton."
"This brings tremendous relief to his family and so many across the country," Minor added. "Conservatives know that government power can be abused and should not be used to execute someone who was not in the building when the murder was committed. Gov. Ivey acted on these conservative principles."
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Different Faiths, One Moral Call: Why Mercy Must Prevail for Sonny Burton
As faith leaders, we walk alongside families in their pain, and we know this truth intimately: More death does not heal trauma. It only deepens it. As people of faith, we believe this moment calls for mercy.
Mar 04, 2026
As people of faith, a Muslim Imam, a Jewish Rabbi, a Protestant Pastor, and a Catholic Archbishop, we come from different traditions, yet we arrive at the same moral truth: The power to take a life must be exercised with profound humility, restraint, and reverence for human dignity. When irreversible harm is at stake, mercy is not weakness; it is moral strength. Across our faith traditions, we are taught that justice is not simply punishment. Justice divorced from mercy ceases to be just at all.
Our faiths teach that judgment ultimately belongs to God. Our responsibility is to protect life whenever possible, to act with compassion toward victims, and to refrain from violence when it is no longer necessary to protect society. Compassion for those who grieve is essential, as is humility about the limits of human judgment. God is God, and we are not.
Doug Battle’s life was taken, and that loss is permanent and devastating. We hold his family and loved ones in prayer, and we do not minimize their grief or the harm caused. Faith does not ask us to forget the victim, nor does it excuse the wrongdoing that led to this tragedy. Rather, it calls us to confront suffering truthfully to honor the life that was lost while resisting the belief that another death can restore what has been taken.
When those most deeply affected by violence, particularly a victim’s own family, call for mercy, faith asks us to listen with care. In this case, the victim’s daughter has publicly urged the governor to choose clemency, and 6 of the 8 original jurors, who once bore the responsibility of this decision, now support mercy in the form of clemency for Sonny Burton. Extreme punishment does not heal loss. It compounds it.
A system that knows when not to kill demonstrates wisdom, not weakness.
While Sonny Burton bears responsibility for his actions, faith traditions consistently teach that punishment must be proportionate to culpability. Capital punishment has long been understood, even by its supporters, as reserved for the most extreme acts of intent and responsibility.
Burton’s case brings this teaching into sharp focus. He did not pull the trigger that took a life, yet he faces execution while the state agreed to resentence the triggerman to life without parole and he later died in prison. In moments like this, faith calls us to examine not only what the law permits, but what conscience requires.
Clemency in such circumstances is not a failure of justice. It is a humane expression of justice, one that recognizes accountability while refusing to impose irreversible punishment where moral certainty is absent. Exercising restraint in such moments can strengthen, rather than weaken, public trust. A system that knows when not to kill demonstrates wisdom, not weakness.
In a situation such as this, where a non-shooter still faces death while the State resentenced the shooter to life without parole, prudence calls for restraint. This is not about being “soft on crime.” It is about being faithful to a vision of justice that is humane, measured, and worthy of public trust.
As faith leaders, we walk alongside families in their pain, and we know this truth intimately: More death does not heal trauma. It only deepens it. As people of faith, we believe this moment calls for mercy.
Governor Ivey, as people of faith, we respectfully ask you to choose humility over finality and mercy over irreversible harm. Clemency for Sonny Burton would not deny justice; it would affirm the sacred value of life.
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'A Dystopian Horror Story': Dr. Oz Slammed Over Praise for Robot Ultrasounds in Alabama
"It’s not safe to be an OB-GYN in red states, so they are turning to robots to care for pregnant woman. This is not an innovation success story."
Jan 16, 2026
Alabama is among the states that have seen a significant drop in the number of obstetrician-gynecologists working there since Roe v. Wade was overturned and cleared the way for states to ban abortion, resulting in doctors being unable to provide standard care and in a number of cases, placing patients in serious and even deadly danger.
On Friday, at a White House roundtable on healthcare in rural areas—some of the hardest-hit by the lack of OB-GYN care in states with abortion bans—one of President Donald Trump's top health officials suggested the exodus of doctors from Alabama and other crises in healthcare access have resulted in positive innovations as care is outsourced to "robots."
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said that since Alabama "has no OB-GYNs in many of their counties," the state is "doing something pretty cool."
"They're actually having robots do ultrasounds on these pregnant moms," said Oz.
Dr Oz: "Alabama has no OBGYNs in many of their counties, so they're doing something pretty cool. They're actually having robots do ultrasounds on these pregnant moms." pic.twitter.com/sEwd4OJss9
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 16, 2026
CMS, which oversees the new Office of Rural Health Transformation, recently highlighted in a report about rural healthcare Alabama's Maternal and Fetal Health Initiative, which it said "provides digital maternity care by using telerobotic ultrasound devices and labor and delivery carts to rural hospitals."
Oz asserted that robotic ultrasounds will help to reduce Alabama's maternal mortality rate, which is the highest in the United States, as medical centers will be able to detect health issues and abnormalities.
But observers said that praising an outcome of the dearth of maternal healthcare in the state—which has been at least partially caused by Trump's push to overturn Roe and Republicans' efforts to ban abortion—was "horrific."
"The severe lack of OB-GYNs," said the labor-focused media group More Perfect Union, "is a crisis, especially in rural America."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, added: "It’s not safe to be an OB-GYN in red states, so they are turning to robots to care for pregnant woman. This is not an innovation success story. It’s a dystopian horror story."
A 2024 analysis by the Association of American Medical Colleges found that in the year following the US Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, applicants for OB-GYN residency programs plummeted 21.2%.
The ruling allowed Alabama's near-total abortion ban—which has only one ostensible "exception" for cases in which a pregnant person faces a serious health risk—to go into effect. Rights groups said that the law, one of the most extreme bans in the US, had been passed by the state's Republican legislature as part of an effort to force the court to reconsider Roe.
Robin Marty, executive director of WAWC Healthcare in the state, told the Alabama Reflector in 2024 that "when it comes to, especially, OB-GYN residencies, nobody wants to come out here because we can’t fulfill all of the requirements, which include being able to do abortions and manage miscarriage."
There had also been a 13.1% drop in applicants for OB-GYN programs in 2019-20 after the approval of the state's Sanctity of Life Act, which recognized “the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life."
“Legislative interference that imposes restrictions on full-scope reproductive healthcare, including abortion care, discourages medical students from pursuing residency training in states with restrictions, directly hurting patients by reducing the physician workforce in the communities that often need clinicians the most,” AnnaMarie Connolly, chief of education and academic affairs of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), told the Alabama Reflector.
In addition to the state's abortion ban, the worsening lack of prenatal care in rural Alabama has also driven the state's decision to turn to robotics to provide some aspects of healthcare.
Since 2020, more than 100 rural hospitals across the nation have stopped delivering babies; at least three of them have been in Alabama, where just 30% of rural health centers have labor and delivery units. Hospitals have cited staffing shortages and low Medicaid reimbursement payments—which were worsened by the Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act—as reasons for closing obstetric care units. Closures have left many families traveling an hour or more to receive prenatal care, and can worsen maternal mortality rates.
Regarding the robotic ultrasounds heralded by Oz, political analyst Drew Savicki said: "That is interesting but it represents a very small fraction of what an OB-GYN does. What is an ultrasound robot going to do for a woman who is coming in for her post-childbirth examination?"
In his comments, Oz unwittingly described the crisis the Trump administration has helped to make worse: "We have the best healthcare, if you can get to it."
One observer suggested Trump's healthcare officials "explain why no OB-GYNs want to work in Alabama, rather than bragging about robots."
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In Blow to 'Fetal Personhood' Push, Alabamian Serving 18 Years After Stillbirth Gets New Trial
"I'm hopeful that my new trial will end with me being freed, because I simply lost my pregnancy at home because of an infection," said Brooke Shoemaker, who has already spent five years in prison.
Dec 30, 2025
While Brooke Shoemaker and a rights group representing her in court are celebrating this week after an Alabama judge threw out her conviction and ordered a new trial, her case is also drawing attention to the dangers of "fetal personhood" policies.
"Laws and judicial decisions that grant fetuses—and in some cases embryos and fertilized eggs—the same legal rights and status given to born people, such as the right to life, is 'fetal personhood,'" explains the website of the group, Pregnancy Justice. "When fetuses have rights, this fundamentally changes the legal rights and status of all pregnant people, opening the door to criminalization, surveillance, and obstetric violence."
Since the US Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling ended the federal right to abortion in 2022, far-right activists and politicians have ramped up their fight for fetal personhood policies. Pregnancy Justice found that in the two years after the decision, the number of people who faced criminal charges related to their pregnancies hit its highest level in US history.
Shoemaker's case began even earlier, in 2017, when she experienced a stillbirth at home about 24-26 weeks into her pregnancy. Paramedics brought her to a hospital, where she disclosed using methamphetamine while pregnant. Although a medical examiner could not determine whether the drug use caused the stillbirth—and, according to Pregnancy Justice, "her placenta showed clear signs of infection"—a jury found her guilty of chemical endangerment of a minor. She's served five years of her 18-year sentence.
"After becoming Ms. Shoemaker's counsel in 2024, Pregnancy Justice filed a petition alongside Andrew Stanley of the Samford Law Office requesting a hearing based on new evidence about the infection that led to the demise of Ms. Shoemaker's pregnancy, leading the judge to agree with Pregnancy Justice's medical witness and to vacate the conviction," the rights group said in a Monday statement.
Lee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Tickal wrote in his December 22 order that "should the facts had been known, and brought before the jury, the results probably would have been different."
Shoemaker said Monday that "after years of fighting, I'm thankful that I'm finally being heard, and I pray that my next Christmas will be spent at home with my children and parents... I'm hopeful that my new trial will end with me being freed, because I simply lost my pregnancy at home because of an infection. I loved and wanted my baby, and I never deserved this."
Although Tickal's decision came three days before Christmas, the 45-year-old mother of four remained behind bars for the holiday last week, as the state appeals.
"While we are thrilled with the judge's decision, we are outraged that Ms. Shoemaker is still behind bars when she should have been home for Christmas," said former Pregnancy Justice senior staff attorney Emma Roth. "She was convicted based on feelings, not facts. Pregnancy Justice will continue to fight on appeal and prove that pregnancies end tragically for reasons far beyond a mother's control. Women like Ms. Shoemaker should be allowed to grieve their loss without fearing arrest."
AL.com reported Tuesday that "Alabama is unique in that it is one of only three states, along with Oklahoma and South Carolina, where the state Supreme Court allows the application of criminal laws meant to punish child abuse or child endangerment to be applied in the context of pregnancy."
However, similar cases aren't restricted to those states. Pregnancy Justice found that in the two years following Dobbs, "prosecutors initiated cases in 16 states: Alabama, California, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. While prosecutions were brought in all of these states, to date, the majority of the reported cases occurred in Alabama (192) and Oklahoma (112)."
This is fantastic news!!I wrote in my book how the medical examiner ruled the cause of the stillbirth "undetermined," but the coroner (who lacks medical training) instead listed cause of stillbirth as mom's meth usage on the fetal death certificate.
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— Jill Wieber Lens (@jillwieberlens.bsky.social) December 30, 2025 at 12:25 PM
"Prosecutors used a variety of criminal statutes to charge the defendants in these cases, often bringing more than one charge against an individual defendant," the group's report continues. "In total, the 412 defendants faced 441 charges for conduct related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth. The majority of charges (398/441) asserted some form of child abuse, neglect, or endangerment."
"As has been the case for decades, nearly all the cases alleged that the pregnant person used a substance during pregnancy," the report adds. "In 268 cases, substance use was the only allegation made against the pregnant person. In the midst of a wide-ranging crisis in maternal healthcare and despite maternal healthcare deserts across the country, prosecutors or police argued that pregnant people's failure to obtain prenatal care was evidence of a crime. This was the case in 29 of 412 cases."
When the publication was released last year, Pregnancy Justice president Lourdes A. Rivera said in a statement that "the Dobbs decision emboldened prosecutors to develop ever more aggressive strategies to prosecute pregnancy, leading to the most pregnancy-related criminal cases on record."
"This is directly tied to the radical legal doctrine of 'fetal personhood,' which grants full legal rights to an embryo or fetus, turning them into victims of crimes perpetrated by pregnant women," Rivera argued. "To turn the tide on criminalization, we need to separate healthcare from the criminal legal system and to change policy and practices to ensure that pregnant people can safely access the healthcare they need, without fear of criminalization. This report demonstrates that, in post-Dobbs America, being pregnant places people at increased risk, not only of dire health outcomes, but of arrest."
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I Lost My Father to Violence—Executing the Wrong Man Won’t Bring Justice
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.
Dec 30, 2025
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.
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