In massive upset, Alabama governor does right thing

In a welcome contrast to a blue state governor proposing to use his pardon power to promote election denialism in the course of offering himself as Donald Trump’s personal valet, here’s a governor in the Deep South using is to promote something like justice:

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday commuted the death sentence of a 75-year-old inmate who was set to be executed this week, even though he was not in the building when the victim was killed.

Ivey reduced Charles “Sonny” Burton’s sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole, marking just the second time the Republican governor has granted clemency of a death row inmate since taking office in 2017.

Burton was sentenced to death for the 1991 shooting death of a customer, Doug Battle, during a store robbery. However, another man, Derrick DeBruce, shot Battle after Burton had left the building. DeBruce’s death sentence was later reduced on appeal to life in prison.

Ivey, who has presided over 25 executions, said she firmly believes in the death penalty as “just punishment for society’s most heinous offenders,” but said it also must be administered fairly and proportionately.

“I cannot proceed in good conscience with the execution of Mr. Burton under such disparate circumstances. I believe it would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not,” Ivey said in a statement.

Making “felony murder” a capital offense is in itself dispositive evidence that the death penalty has never been reserved for “the worst of the worst.” This in an issue that would be better addressed by statute than leaving it to the whim of juries and governors, but in the universe that exists it’s better that Ivey acted to correct the obviously inequitable punishment.