§3596 Implementation of a sentence of death

Summary

A person sentenced to death must be kept by the Attorney General until all appeals and reviews of the conviction and sentence are finished. When the sentence is ready to be carried out, the Attorney General must turn the person over to a United States marshal. The marshal will carry out the execution under the law of the State where the sentence was given. If that State has no way to carry out a death sentence, the court will pick another State that does, and the execution will follow that State’s law. A woman may not be executed while she is pregnant. A person who is mentally retarded, or who because of a mental disability cannot understand the death penalty and why it was imposed, may not be executed.