FRANKFORT — Kevin Stanford might seem an unlikely cause celebre.

        A hardened criminal before he was 12, Mr. Stanford's rape and murder of a convenience store clerk while still a 17-year-old juvenile in 1981 seemed to fulfill a destiny with the electric chair.

        The U.S. Supreme Court, in 1989, used Mr. Stanford's case to rule that the execution of killers who committed their crimes at age 16 or 17 was constitutional.

        Now 38 and with more than half his life spent under a death sentence, Mr. Stanford presents a fulcrum for the coming debate in the General Assembly over capital punishment.

        One of the primary initiatives for opponents of capital punishment is to eliminate it for those whose crimes were committed when they were juveniles. Another push will be to outlaw the death penalty for mentally retarded people.

        Even death penalty opponents find Mr. Stanford an uncomfortable example.

        “Nothing excuses what Kevin Stanford did,” said the Rev. Pat Delahanty, a leader of the death penalty abolition movement.

        But the Rev. Mr. Delahanty said legislators should not make public policy based on Kevin Stanford's conduct. Even if they did, he suggested a possible alternative — making legislation prospective, which would exclude Stanford from its application. “They have that option,” he said.

        Gov. Paul Patton has said if the legislature passes a law to outlaw executions for juvenile criminals, he may consider looking at Mr. Stanford's case for a possible commutation.

        “He's a poster boy,” said George Moore, the commonwealth's attorney for Montgomery and Rowan counties and the immediate past president of the prosecutors' association.

        Mr. Moore said many examples of the most heinous crimes involve juvenile killers. “I don't think it's a simple judgment,” he said.

        The Rev. Mr. Delahanty and Mr. Moore take different perspectives, of course, on public attitudes toward the death penalty.

        The Rev. Mr. Delahanty thinks the public is turning against capital punishment and has already done so in the cases of the mentally ill and juveniles. Complete abolition is another matter. “That bill is not going to become law this session,” the Rev. Mr. Delahanty acknowledged. “Mentally ill could, I think.”

        This time, the Rev. Mr. Delahanty has legislators lined up to sponsor legislation. And there is a possibility the bills could get past hostile committee chairmen in the House and Senate for votes.

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