Actually, that is how it’s done here in Japan (gallows);
The people sentenced to death have NO idea (whether it is days or years) until they come to get them out of their cell. Not even the family members know until after the fact.
Wow! That would be pretty hard to handle for most of them I would think. Although I just read two things about that. One my daughter showed me, some liberal crap about how the mentality needs to be “I am already dead” (was talking about global warming!) - so it didn’t matter if you die or not. (My daughter said “So what’s the point of life then!?”
The other was by the “Machine Gun Preacher” where his idea was “I don’t worry about dieing. My enemy can only kill my body. But my life will go on forever.”