FRANKFORT — Opponents of the death penalty got their hearing Tuesday before the General Assembly, but even a legislative supporter said the chance for a real vote on the issue is remote.

        Capital punishment opponents have long been frustrated by legislators who generally favor the death penalty.

        Rep. Gross Lindsay, D-Henderson, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, agreed to give the topic a hearing but was vague about what else might happen.

        “I imagine our plate will be full by the session,” Mr. Lindsay said Tuesday.

        Interim committees, like the one that met Tuesday, cannot take any official action. Only during the legislative session, which begins in January, can legislators do anything substantive.

        “This is window dressing,” said Rep. Bob Heleringer, R-Louisville, a death-penalty opponent. “This is the way of people that have power in this institution to avoid a vote or any meaningful action on a controversial issue.”

        The lack of a substantive proceeding did little to dampen the debate.

        Opponents hit hardest on policies that could allow the execution of the people who committed their crimes while under the age of 18 and those who are mentally retarded.

        And Kentucky allows the execution of people who committed their crimes at age 16 or 17.

        “The United States is isolated in the world in the killing of children,” said Sheila Schuster, chairwoman of Kentucky Youth Advocates.

        “Killing kids who have killed does not stop kids from killing. It just kills kids,” added Lexington psychologist Kerby Neill, who has evaluated six juveniles charged with murder.

        Opponents of capital punishment for juveniles picked up an important ally Tuesday. Denis Fleming, Gov. Paul Patton's general counsel, said the governor opposes capital punishment for crimes committed by someone age 16 or 17. Mr. Fleming said the law in many other areas does not recognize that people the age of 18 have the capacity to make their own judgments, such as signing contracts.

        Mr. Patton has long supported capital punishment generally and has signed the death warrants that ordered the two executions Kentucky has carried out since the punishment was reinstated in Kentucky in 1976.

        While Kentucky prohibits execution of someone with an IQ of less than 70, opponents of capital punishment say one of the 39 people on death row in Kentucky might be excluded from that haven because his crime was committed before the law was changed in 1990.

        Mr. Fleming said the administration believes there are sufficient safeguards in place to ensure the retarded are not put to death.

        Carl Wedekind, a retired lawyer from Louisville and director of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said 62 percent of the death-penalty convictions returned in Kentucky since the punishment was reinstated in 1976 have been overturned by the courts.

        Prosecutors, who were given equal time in the committee, did not dispute the statistic.

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