Seven is the number of Kansas convicts facing the death penalty.

But a month ago, that number stood at four.

“I’m starting to feel like I’m in Texas,” said Donna Schneweis, referring to the state that so far this year has performed 29 executions.

Since reinstating the death penalty in 1994, Kansas has yet to see the government put anyone to death. But current events do not bode well for opponents of capital punishment, said Schneweis, coordinator of the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

“It’s a time of sadness for the people of Kansas,” she said.

The coalition had its annual meeting Sunday, using the event as a way not only to reaffirm its beliefs but also to organize against and learn about the death penalty.

Much of the meeting focused on age-old issues for death penalty opponents: the punishment’s morality, costs, effectiveness and justice. Yet new topics came up as well, including the case of Joe Amrine, a Missouri man many believe was wrongly convicted for murdering a prison inmate, and the status of capital punishment in Kansas.

“The death penalty does something to the way we think,” said Amrine’s attorney, Sean O’Brien of the Public Interest Law Clinic, Kansas City, Mo.

Defense for capital crimes in Kansas is currently adequately funded, which is fortunate for defendants, said O’Brien, who also represented John E. Robinson Sr. in his recent Johnson County case.

But, he said, the next battle for the state is that “people are going to question whether the defense system needs to be so well funded.”

Warden David McKune talks with reporters during a media tour of the execution chamber at Lansing Correctional Facility in this Oct. 25, 2001, file photo. McKune is viewed through one-way glass from the room where the lethal injections will be administered. Death penalty opponents hope such chambers will one day be abolished.

Top law enforcement officials Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall and Atty.-Gen.-elect Phill Kline did not return phone calls. Kansas University law dean Stephen McAllister, who served as a special assistant attorney general in the capital case of Gary Kleypas, also did not return phone calls.

Recent cases have caused even the staunchest of death penalty opponents to re-examine their beliefs, Schneweis said.

On Friday, a Wichita judge sentenced Reginald and Jonathan Carr to death for a December 2000 killing spree that left five dead.

The trial was graphic, and it played havoc with people’s emotions, she said.

Likewise, Kansans were shocked by facts that surfaced in Robinson’s trial. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of two women whose bodies were found in barrels on his property and also for the murder of a woman who disappeared in 1985 and was never found.

And even in Lawrence, Damien C. Lewis, 22, faces capital murder charges for the death of an elderly Lawrence couple. In addition, Raymond Boothe, 34, has been charged with the August slaying of his son in Leavenworth County.

November’s spike in death sentences may indicate that the state is becoming more accepting of capital punishment, O’Brien said, but chances are the increase won’t continue at a similar rate.

¢ Death Penalty Information Center¢ Pro Death Penalty¢ National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty¢ A Kansas Guide to the Dealth Penalty¢ The Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty

There tends to be something of a bubble, he said. One generation is more supportive of executions than the next, so they slowly increase and then decline.

“The public won’t tolerate executions at a certain pace,” he said.

Making sense of the number of victims and the nature of the crimes has challenged Kansans, Schneweis said, but the direction most are taking remains one of questioning the validity of the death penalty.

In other ways, high-profile cases tend to polarize positions on the death penalty, said Bill Lucero, state coordinator of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation.

Some point to the death penalty as an ineffective deterrent, while others advocate increased punishments.

“People dig in that much further,” he said.

Still, Lucero said he had not received one comment in recent mailings that said “Take me off the mailing list, I’ve changed by mind.”