§3596 Implementation of a Sentence of Death

Summary

A person sentenced to death must stay in the Attorney General’s custody until all appeals and sentence reviews are finished. When the sentence is to be carried out, the Attorney General must turn the person over to a U.S. marshal, who will supervise the execution under the law of the state where the sentence was imposed. If that state has no death‑penalty procedures, the court must pick another state that does. A woman cannot be executed while pregnant. No one who is mentally retarded, or who because of a mental disability cannot understand the death penalty and why it was imposed, may be executed.