Execution (law)

“ The writ to enforce the judgment of a court of law is called an execution. It is directed to the sheriff or other proper executive officer, and requires him to seize and sell the defendant's property or, as the case may be, to arrest and imprison him, to turn him out of possession of certain lands, or to take some other active step against one who has been adjudged in the wrong, in order to right the wrong, as the judgment may command.
A judgment for equitable relief is not ordinarily the subject of an execution. ”

“ Besides, the reports of the courts of the United States furnish ample evidenee of the constant practice of bringing suits against executors and administrators, and to cite these cases would be a work of supererogation, because it would be to demonstrate what cannot be denied. Nor does it seem to have been thought, in any instance, that judgments thus rendered could not be executed; and certainly an execution is necessary to the beneficial exercise of the jurisdiction. An execution is said to be the end of the law, and it gives to the successful party the fruits of his judgment. ”

“ An execution is the fruit and end of the suit, and is very aptly called the life of the law. The suit does not terminate with the judgment; and all proceedings on the execution, are proceedings in the suit, and which are expressly, by the act of Congress, put under the regulation and control of the Court out of which it issues. It is a power incident to every Court from which process issues, when delivered to the proper officer, to enforce upon such officer a compliance with his duty, and a due execution of the process, according to its command. ”

“ In law, whether it be criminal or civil, execution always follows judgment, and someone must suffer. When you see the judge on his bench, you see through him, as clearly as if he were made of glass, the policeman to emprison, and the soldier to slay some actual living person. Such follies would make an agreeable market, wouldn’t they? ”

“ When it was first held to be inconsistent with reason to mete out the same punishment to a highway robber who kills a traveller for his purse, and to the villain who takes away life from the author of his being, a distinction was instituted accordingly, but we can only rest in astonishment that any executioner could be found to put such a horrible law into execution as was devised to meet the requirements of the case. ”

“ Doing a thing by law, or according to law, is only carrying the law into execution. And punishing a man by, or according to, the sentence or judgment of his peers, is only carrying that sentence or judgment into execution. ”

“ The substantial punishment imposed by each statute is death by hanging. The differences between the two, as to the manner in which this sentence of death shall be carried into execution, are trifling. What are they? By the old law, execution must be within 25 days from the day of sentence; by the new, within 28 days. By the old, confinement prior to execution was in the county jail; by the new, in the penitentiary. By the old, the sheriff was the hangman; by the new, the warden. ”

“ The conviction of a man, you honor, does not necessarily prove that he is guilty. Your law books are filled with instances where men have been carried to the scaffold and after their death it has been proven that their execution was a judicial murder. ”

“ N. Y. § 528, which provides that, 'when the judgment is of death, an appeal to the court of appeals stays the execution, of course, until the determination of the appeal;' and it was also held that, under the statute providing for execution by electricity, a warrant which directed that execution be done by putting defendant to death in the mode, manner, and way, and at the place, by law prescribed and provided, was sufficient. ”

“ Neither the statute nor due process of law required that the accused should, upon the affirmance of the judgment, be sentenced anew by the trial court to suffer the punishment of death, or that he should be present when the day was fixed by the appellate court for carrying the original sentence into execution. The judgment prescribing that punishment was not vacated by the writ of error; only its execution was stayed pending proceedings in the appellate court. ”

“ For more than six hundred years—that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215—there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws. ”

“ The public modes of punishment established by law were four, viz.: executions by [Pg 52] hanging, whipping of men at the cart-tail, whipping of women in the jail-yard, and the elevation of counterfeiters and the like to a movable pillory, which turned on its base so as to front north, south, east and west in succession, remaining at each point a quarter of an hour. During this execution of the majesty of the law the neck of the culprit was bent to a most uncomfortable curve, presenting a facial mark for those salutations of stale eggs which seemed to have been preserved for the occasion. ”

“ The five together, or, by an additional act, the majority of them, satisfactory evidence. of guilt appearing, were to sentence the culprit to death, or such lesser punishment as the offense might seem to deserve. In case of lesser punishment, "no particular law directing such punishment" was necessary. In case of death, "the kind of death" was left to "the judgment and discretion" of the court, execution to be forthwith done on their sole warrant, the owner to be indemnified at the public charge. ”

“ I was talking to a lawyer about the length of time which is allowed by the judges to criminals sentenced to death as a detail of the execution of the law not in accordance with the general practice of civilised nations, when one of the company remarked, "They must do it, sir, to please the people. ”

“ Statutory directions being given that the prisoner when duly convicted shall suffer death, without any statutory regulation specifically pointing out the mode of executing the command of the law, it must be that the duty is devolved upon the court authorized to pass the sentence to determine the mode of execution and to impose the sentence prescribed. ”

“ Eight.— If (illegible text) the proceedings in the prefent cafe are as rigidly exact as the law requires, in the uncommon mode of taking away life, ought Council to form a new kind of warrant for execution, thereby ordering, that on a certain day the offender be hanged by the neck till he be dead, or order in the warrant, that on a certain day execution be done upon the offender, leaving the fheriff to decide what is the punishment by law to be indicted ? ”

“ Our law allows an appeal to be brought against a murderer by the widow, or next heir, of the person murdered, yea, though the murderer have been acquitted upon an indictment; and, if the murderer be found guilty upon that appeal, execution shall be awarded at the suit of the appellant, who may properly be called the avenger of blood. ”

“ I advocate that the sentence of death, once passed, should be a sentence which the doomed man, as well as his friends and sympathisers who are still at liberty, should regard as quite irrevocable. At the same time I do not advocate an increase in the number of executions—just the reverse. As the best means to this end I think we ought to have a considerable alteration in our criminal law as it relates to murder cases. I think that the jury should have more power over the sentence, and for this purpose I think that they ought to have the choice of five classes of verdict, namely:—
Not guilty. ”

“ But this we know, that if that man is executed at eight, as the clocks now stand, HE IS MURDERED, just as much as he would be, if, the evening before, he had been forcibly strangled in his cell! The felon's life is sacred until the hour arrives when justice has ordained him to die; and if the life be taken sooner, that is murder. Who, we ask, would be the responsible parties in this case, not perhaps to an earthly, but surely to a higher tribunal? On the other hand, if the execution does not take place at eight, it is highly questionable whether the criminal can be executed at all. ”

“ He proposed a resolution declaratory that capital punishment ought to bear no relation to the rank of the culprit; that when a criminal is condemned to death, for any crime whatever, the mode of execution should be the same whether he were peer or peasant. ”

“ You are of opinion that the justice of an execution consists, not in the extent of the sufferer's crime, or in his having merited punishment, or in the wholesome and salutary effect which that example is likely to produce upon other evil-doers, but hold that it rests solely in the robe of the judge, the height of the bench, and the voice of the doomster? ”

“ Whenever there is a series of executions, without reprieves, the number of murders decreases, and on the other hand, after a period in which several persons have been tried for murder and acquitted, or reprieved after sentence, the number of crimes appears to increase. I do not think that this rule can be demonstrated forcibly and convincingly by a reference to the mere numbers of murders, convictions, reprieves, and executions during the past few years, because there are many considerations which bear upon the significance of an execution or reprieve ”

“ Where sentence of death for murder is to be executed in accordance with that Act, it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, as early as he conveniently can, to publish in such manner as he thinks fit the time and place fixed for the execution. ”

“ It has been done. There is a case of a judge who sentenced a man to death and allowed the execution to take place, notwithstanding that he—the judge—had actually seen the murder committed by another man. ”

“ Public executions are very simply carried out. The criminal is taken to the spot on a horse, and when he arrives, is bound, and made to kneel on the ground over a hole which is to receive his head. The executioner, who uses the “ken” above named, arranges the culprit’s head in the proper position, and, apparently without any effort, decapitates the man with a blow. The old traveller Purchas very neatly expresses the mode of execution by a single word. ”

“ If a man commit murder by the hand of another, he shall be tried in the same way as in the cases previously supposed, but if the offender be a citizen, his body after execution shall be buried within the land. ”

“ It may certainly afford matter of speculation that in civil causes there should be such a variety of writs of execution to recover a trifling debt, issued in the king's name, and under the seal of the court, without which the sheriff cannot legally stir one step; and yet that the execution of a man, the most important and terrible task of any, should depend upon a marginal note. ”

“ In cases of high treason, other barbarities were practised upon the bodies of the criminals, but these were frequently,28 and in cases of persons of distinction, generally, remitted. Indeed, even the hanging was dispensed with in these latter cases; and hence we read of the execution of great prisoners of state, male and female, by beheading, which, strictly, is a manner of death unknown to the laws of England, except as an incident to the principal penalty by hanging or burning. ”

“ But though the petty jury judge of the fact, i.e., what the crime is, or whether it was committed by the prisoner or not, the commissioners or judges declare what are the punishments appropriated to the several species of crimes, and pronounce judgment accordingly on the offender. In high treason they sentence the criminal to be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution, there to be hanged and quartered. In murder, robbery, and other felonies, which are excluded the benefit of the clergy, the criminal is sentenced to be hanged till he is dead. ”

“ I cannot believe, however, that if the sentence of a citizen to death is plainly illegal, this Court would allow that citizen to be executed on the grounds that his lawyers had 'waived' plain error. An illegal execution is no less illegal because a technical ground of 'waiver' is assigned to justify it. ”

“ The fundamental question being thus decided for the retention of capital punishment, the mode of execution came next into discussion, and on the 3rd of June, 1791, the following article was proposed:—
"Every criminal condemned to death shall be beheaded [aura la tête tranchée] ." ”

“ The decision of the criminal courts is communicated to the council, who reassemble to receive it. The sentence of the court, once proclaimed by the council, is irrevocable, and is put in execution within twenty-four hours. The criminal court is rarely convoked. There are few crimes committed in the republic. One man was executed for murder about six years since. ”

“ Of course, the scaffold and rope are arranged, and the drop decided, beforehand. I calculate for three minutes to be occupied from the time of entering the condemned cell to the finish of life’s great tragedy for the doomed man, so I enter the cell punctually at three minutes to eight. In order that my action in hanging a man may be legal, it is necessary that I should have what is known as an “authority to hang,” which is drawn up and signed by the Sheriff, and handed to me a few minutes before the time for the execution. ”