LOUISVILLE — Kentucky death row inmate Kevin Stanford lost a request to have his appeal heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that he was denied his right to confront his accuser at his trial 20 years ago.

Mr. Stanford's petition to consider whether the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment should bar the execution of people who commit capital crimes as juveniles is still alive, however.

Mr. Stanford, 39, was 17 when he was accused of the January 1981 robbery, sodomy and murder of Baerbel Poore, 20, a Jefferson County gas station attendant.

The Supreme Court held in Mr. Stanford's first appeal in 1989 that there was no national consensus against executing offenders for killing at age 16 or 17.

But his lawyers now argue that times have changed and that putting juvenile offenders to death is inconsistent with “evolving standards of decency” and international laws and treaties.

The state's response to the petition notes that at age 17, Mr. Stanford already was a “career criminal” who had been sent to five different correctional facilities as a result of juvenile court proceedings.

The court took no action on the petition Monday, the first day of its new term, which means it could decide to hear the issue later in the term or address it in another case.

The Kentucky attorney general's office won't request an execution date until the juvenile-death-penalty issue is resolved, said David Sexton, director of the office's criminal appellate division.

Mr. Stanford's co-counsel, Margaret O'Donnell of Frankfort, said: “We are trying to sort this out and see what it might possibly mean. We don't know our next step yet.”

The Supreme Court refused to hear Mr. Stanford's appeal of a ruling issued in September 2001 by a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The panel rejected Mr. Stanford's argument that his rights were violated when a co-defendant's confession was read to the jury.

The co-defendant, David Buchanan, who was convicted of robbery, rape, sodomy and murder and sentenced to life in prison, implicated Mr. Stanford as the assailant and didn't testify at trial. Defendants generally have the right to cross-examine their accuser, but the appeals panel held that error was harmless because there was so much other evidence against Mr. Stanford.

Mr. Stanford's appellate lawyers have maintained that while evidence clearly tied him to the robbery and sexual assaults, it didn't prove he shot the victim.

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