Public pressure saved Sonny Burton. It can save others.
Public pressure campaigns have the power to save those on death row.
After more than three decades on death row, Sonny Burton was handed an execution date. Sonny didn’t kill anyone. The state knew this. Governor Kay Ivey knew this. Even so, Ivey was adamant that Sonny would be executed on March 12, 2026.
Sonny’s legal and advocacy teams turned to social media, as so many on death row do, to amplify his case to as many people as possible.
I connected with Sonny’s social team in December 2025, two months before Gov. Ivey issued Sonny’s execution date. The carousel that was sent to me highlighting his case stopped me in my tracks. Sonny didn’t kill anyone – he wasn’t even in the building when the victim in the case for which he was to be executed was killed. I have been involved in many death penalty cases; this particular case was, on its face, as wrong as could be. Immediately, my mind went to Nate Woods – another Black man who was executed under Alabama’s capital murder law back in 2020. Gov. Ivey was also in office at the time, meaning she oversaw that execution. Being familiar with Alabama’s track record on the death penalty, I was admittedly hesitant to work with Sonny’s team. I am all too familiar with the heartbreak that comes with getting involved in death penalty cases and, selfishly, I didn’t know if I had it in me to experience that again. The last case I got involved in, Marcellus Williams, was crippling. But the images of Sonny – frail, wheelchair-bound, and smiling ear-to-ear despite his circumstances – pulled me in.
I want to tell you, reader, one thing that I stand firm on: the criminal legal system in the United States is irredeemable. There is no “fixing” it. It must be abolished and rebuilt as something entirely new.
You cannot redeem a system that would put an elderly man to death for a crime he did not commit after already stealing more than three decades of his life. It is not logical.
I also want to be transparent about my work trying to stop Sonny Burton’s execution: I have never put more effort into amplifying a case before in my six years of this work. I have never had to directly ask people, many of whom did not even respond, to amplify a case. I had never before been told that “death penalty posts don’t produce great engagement,” therefore, people had no interest in posting. I cashed in every favor I had been holding onto to get people to post about Sonny’s case. The days were rapidly passing, closing in on Sonny’s execution date, and I was feeling both helpless and hopeless.
Despite all of the aforementioned, millions of people around the world were engaging, taking action, and feeling just as sick over Sonny’s case as I was the moment I first read about it.
It is because of these people of conscience and their willingness to put pressure on Gov. Kay Ivey that Sonny is still with us today, months beyond the date in which the state of Alabama intended to murder him.
I connected with Sonny’s legal team to ask them their thoughts on the people-powered efforts to save Sonny.
“This was truly a Herculean effort by thousands, indeed millions, of people helping us move this mountain. One small thing that sticks in my mind was a comment from one of the Governor’s staff, when we called simply to give them a courtesy notice of an event, regarding how they had been hearing about this case non-stop, and the phone lines had been lit up. Every call, every moment standing in demonstration, and every effort, from the largest to the smallest, contributed to making this happen. We, Mr. Burton, and his family are so very grateful to you all.” – Matt Schulz, Sonny’s lead counsel
“Everyday people are the reason this clemency campaign was a success. Team Sonny is made up of people from all walks of life – diverse in political belief, religion, socioeconomic status, race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation – the list goes on and on. But the one thing people could agree on was that it was wrong for the State of Alabama to kill this man. It is hard for me to pick a defining moment. The whole thing felt like a dream, and it allowed me to continue having hope when it felt like hope would at last desert me. I think a real turning point, though, was when I saw "LIFE FOR SONNY BURTON" on the marquee at the Capri Theatre. Knowing that Sonny, who is from Montgomery, would not have even been allowed to sit where his family members sat that night if he'd been a patron in that same theater during his childhood. Seeing his family members bravely appearing on screen and in person at the film screening to speak out against the State's plan for their father, brother, uncle, great-uncle. Seeing community members, including college students, who came out that night, and having the support of local organizers who volunteered to staff the screening – shout out, Alabama Resisters! That all was in the forefront of my mind when, just over a week later, the governor set an execution date. And that was what gave me enough strength to declare the fight not over. Instead of giving up hope, to lean on those same people yet again, this time to make sure Sonny's face was in every storefront window that would agree to put up a poster and to make sure every Monday morning, no one drove past the Governor's Mansion from 7:30 to 8:30 without gaining some awareness of what was going to happen in their name if they did not speak out to stop it.” Donna Venable, Assistant Federal Defender
“I have had the pleasure of knowing Sonny now for 20+ years and he is someone that truly makes an impact on people. In all the years I have known him, I have never once seen him feel sorry for himself which is amazing given his circumstances. As for a pivotal moment in the campaign, I believe it was in large part to the film that our investigator, Elena Encarnacion, was primarily responsible for producing. That in combination with the boots on the ground in the community — getting out the flyers about the screening of the film at the Capri, getting postcards out to folks to complete and mail in to the Governor, the weekly vigils, and just telling Sonny's story so many times to strangers on the street that I am sure some people thought I was crazy. The way our team and other organizations and people just kept going and going even when it seemed hopeless just proves you can never give up.” Nancy Palombi, Paralegal on Sonny’s case
As more states are executing people at truly rapid pace, it’s incumbent upon all of us to continue to fight to abolish the death penalty wherever it exists in this country.
As we learned with Sonny: public pressure campaigns have the ability to save someone’s life.
Uplifting campaigns for individual cases or getting involved in campaigns through Death Penalty Action and the ACLU (as well as more local death penalty abolition organizations) is the simplest way we can each use whatever influence we have – as small or large as it may be – to use our voices both offline and online to fight to stop executions.
Beyond that, keeping pressure on elected officials – from your local electeds all the way up to U.S. Congress – is important. I know that it feels like running up a never-ending hill to engage with elected officials but it is important that there is consistent pressure applied on them. (And, as always, I remind everyone that they work for us. Do not be intimidated to let them know what you expect from them in the positions they’ve been elected to hold as representatives of the people.)
If you would like to support Sonny, please consider adding funds to his commissary account:
