EXECUTION, in criminal cases, the completion of human punishment. This follows judgment †; and must in all cases, capital as well as otherwise, be performed by the legal officer, the sheriff or his deputy; whose warrant for so doing was anciently by precept under the hand and seal of the judges, as it is still practised in the court of the lord high steward, upon the execution of a peer: though, in the court of the peers in parliament, it is done by writ from the king. Afterwards it was established, that in case of life, the judge may command execution to be done without any writ. And now the usage is, for the judge to sign the calendar or list of all the prisoners names, with their separate judgments in the margin, which is left with the sheriff. As for a capital felony, it is written opposite to the prisoner's name, "let him be hanged by the neck:" formerly in the days of Latin and abbreviation, "sus. per. col." for "suspendatur per collum."
And this is the only warrant that the sheriff has for so material an act as the taking away the life of another. 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.
The sheriff, upon receipt of his warrant, is to do execution within a convenient time: which in the country is also left at large. In London, indeed, a more solemn and becoming exactness is used, both as to the warrant of execution and the time of executing thereof: for the recorder, after reporting to the king in person the case of the several prisoners, and receiving his royal pleasure, that the law must take its course, issues his warrant to the sheriffs, directing them to do execution on the day and at the place assigned. And in the court of king's bench, if the prisoner be tried at the bar, or brought there by habeas corpus, a rule is made for his execution; either specifying the time and place, or leaving it to the discretion of the sheriff. And, throughout the kingdom, by statute 25 Geo. II. c. 37. it is enacted that, in case of murder, the judge shall in his sentence direct execution to be performed on the next day but one after sentence passed. But,
Exemption a criminal, so reviving, was not allowed to take sanctuary and abjure the realm; but his fleeing to sanctuary was held an escape in the officer.