Death / Legal Research IV

I don't mean for this post to be pro- or anti- death penalty, just an observation. I meant to post this a long time ago, but for some reason or other didn't, so here goes.

Once, while doing some research I had to go through some filings, and court papers for a death penalty case. I didn't think too much about it having seen most of the motions I came across before in one form or another in research I'd done previously.

Then I saw it. What made me realize what made this case different form any other case I'd ever researched or worked on. It was a simple one page document. I don't even remember what the body of it said. It looked like any other motion/pleading/finding/order, same paper, font, formatting, etc. At the top of the first page, in bold caps: DEATH WARRANT.

To be honest, I don't know if I came across that document before or after I saw the sentence pronouncement from the court, but this is how a substantial part of the sentence pronouncement read:
“It is the order of the Court that the Defendant, ---, who has been adjudged by a jury to be guilty of Capital Murder, and whose punishment based upon the finding of the jury has been assessed by the court at death, shall, before the hour of sunrise on Tuesday, the --th of ----, A.D. 19-- at the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at Huntsville, Texas, be caused to die by intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death and until such convict is dead; and that the Clerk of this court issues a Death Warrant in accordance with this sentence directed to the Director of the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at Huntsville, Texas, and deliver such warrant to the Sheriff of this the County of ___, Texas, to be by him delivered to the such director, together with the said [Defendant]. [Defendant] is remanded to jail to await transportation to the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at Huntsville, Texas, and execution of this sentence.”