Sefer HaChinuch ספר החינוך

To hang one who is liable for hanging: That we were commanded to hang one who is liable for hanging by the court. And it is known that all those who are hung are first stoned. And about this it is stated (Deuteronomy 21:22), “and you shall hang him on a pole.” And the law of hanging is with a blasphemer and one who worships idolatry only — like the words of the Sages in the chapter [entitled] Nigmar HaDin (Sanhedrin 45b), who argue against that [position] of Rabbi Eliezer, who says [that] all those who are stoned are hung.

I have written a little about the roots of the commandments of the four death penalties of the court in the Order of Mishpatim (Sefer HaChinukh 47); that we are commanded to kill those that transgress a few of the commandments in the Torah. And there I wrote the disagreement of Ramban, may his memory be blessed, with Rambam, may his memory be blessed, about this matter. And we shall also say that the law of hanging is in order to raise the convict and to publicize him to the eyes of all. Also when they see the matter of the raising of the pole and the tying of the convict upon it, fear and trepidation will enter their hearts.

From the laws of this commandment are what the Sages, may their memory be blessed, said (Sanhedrin 46a), that the commandment of those who are hung is [that] after we stone him, we plant a beam into the ground and the pole sticks out from it and [that] we [place] his hands one on top of the other and [that] we hang him close to sunset and untie him immediately and [that] we bury him with the pole that he was hung upon and with the stone that he was stoned with, so that the creatures will not say, “This is the pole that x was hung upon.” And if they left him overnight there, they violate a negative commandment, as we will write in this Order (Sefer HaChinukh 536), with God’s help. And the rest of its details are in the sixth chapter of Sanhedrin. (See Mishneh Torah, The Sanhedrin and the Penalties within Their Jurisdiction 4:15.)

This commandment is practiced during the time of the Temple, when we had the power in our hands to judge capital punishments; and specifically by males, as it is up to them to establish justice.