Criminal procedure (2023): Sentencing: Execution warrant + Cruel and unusual punishment + Imprisonment + Life imprisonment

An execution warrant (also called death warrant or black warrant) is a writ that authorizes the execution of a condemned person. An execution warrant is not to be confused with a "license to kill", which operates like an arrest warrant but with deadly force instead of arrest as the end goal.

United States.

In the United States either a judicial or executive official designated by law issues an execution warrant. This is done when a person, in trial court proceedings, has been sentenced to death, after trial and conviction, and usually after appeals are exhausted. Normally when a death warrant is signed and an execution date is set, the condemned person is moved from his or her death row cell to a death watch cell, which is typically located adjacent to the execution chamber. Usually, the government agency charged with carrying out an execution, normally the state's Department of Corrections or the Federal Bureau of Prisons in federal cases, has a limited time frame, normally about 60 days, from the date the warrant is signed, to complete the execution process, or the warrant expires and the condemned person is returned to the death row cell, awaiting another execution date.

Stays of execution can be ordered in state cases by the Governor of the State, a trial court, a state appeals court or state Supreme Court or a court in the federal judiciary (including the United States Supreme Court). In federal death penalty cases the trial court, appeals courts, the United States Supreme Court and President may grant a stay of execution. In all cases, the stay may be issued at any time, even when the condemned is being prepared for execution.

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Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase in common law describing punishment that is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to the sanction. The precise definition varies by jurisdiction, but typically includes punishments that are arbitrary, unnecessary, overly severe compared to the crime, or not generally accepted in society.

History.

The words cruel and unusual punishment were first used in the English Bill of Rights 1689. They were later also adopted in the United States by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1791) and in the British Leeward Islands (1798). Very similar words, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", appear in Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948. The right under a different formulation is also found in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) and in Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966). The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) also contains this fundamental right in section 12 and it is to be found in Article 4 (quoting the European Convention verbatim) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000). It is also found in Article 16 of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), and in Article 40 of the Constitution of Poland (1997). The Constitution of the Marshall Islands, in the sixth section of its Bill of Rights (Article 2), prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment", which it defines as: the death penalty; torture; "inhuman and degrading treatment"; and "excessive fines or deprivations".