If these judges find grounds to question the judgment, Saddam will face another trial.
If not, the sentence imposed by the Iraqi High Tribunal will stand and be carried out within 30 days.
Saddam and his seven co-defendants were put on trial for the killing of 148 Shi'ite civilians from the town of Dujail, where the then president escaped an assassination attempt in 1982.
Under the statutes establishing the tribunal in December 2003, both the defence and the prosecution have the right to appeal the verdict.
But any defendant sentenced to death or life imprisonment automatically sees the judgment and the verdict submitted to a panel of nine judges.
Such an appeal would need to focus on an error in procedure or non-respect for the law, and would be heard by the appeals bench of the tribunal.
Prosecutors have asked for the death penalty for Saddam and two of his co-accused, his half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti and former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, for ordering the deaths of the Dujail civilians.
However, Saddam has also been on trial since August 21 charged with ordering the Anfal Campaign in the Kurdish heartland of northern Iraq in 1987 and 1988 which resulted in the deaths of more than 180,000 people, prosecutors say.
The statutes state that no authority, not even the president, can pardon anyone convicted by the tribunal or commute their sentences.
People condemned to death in Iraq are hanged if they are civilians or go before a firing squad if they are members of the armed forces.
Saddam has made it known that he prefers the latter option if he is sentenced to die.