"It's not just the likely subjects, like the Quakers," says Radelet, who will also participate in the UVSC symposium. "It's the Presbyterians and Lutherans and Methodists and American Baptists." At the time of Gary Gilmore's execution nearly three decades ago, "there were really no major religions opposed to the death penalty," he says. As even more proof of the change, Radelet says, he was in a debate with evangelical preacher Pat Robertson a few years ago and "much to my surprise, he came out calling for a moratorium on the death penalty."

Only the Southern Baptists and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Radelet says, have not come out publicly against capital punishment. The Southern Baptists are silent on the issue, he says. The LDS Church in 2003 issued a statement that it "regards the question of whether and in what circumstances the state should impose capital punishment as a matter to be decided solely by the prescribed processes of civil law. We neither promote nor oppose capital punishment."

Among Catholics, according to a Zogby poll, only 48 percent now support the death penalty — and the number drops for regular churchgoers, compared to those who attend church infrequently. The poll was released last March, when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced a new campaign to end the use of the death penalty.

Wrongful convictions, often proved by DNA analysis, are one reason why public opposition to capital punishment is growing, even among conservatives, says Radelet.

But there are other reasons, too, he says. For religions, he says, there is the matter of forgiveness. And capital cases, with their parade of high-paid experts and the inevitable round of appeals, are five to seven times as expensive as keeping an inmate in prison for life, he says. And, too, there is conservative skepticism of big government, including the court system.

"If the government can't build highways or fill in potholes in highways," this arguments goes, "then we have to be skeptical about the ability of government to make God-like life or death decisions" about a person's innocence, he says.

Radelet helped orchestrate a study of capital punishment for then-governor George Ryan of Illinois, who called for a moratorium on the death penalty in his state when DNA analysis proved the innocence of 13 people on death row. "Our study revealed massive regional and racial variations" in death penalty sentences, he says. "You were more likely to get death if the homicide victim was white."

Since 1989, says University of Utah law professor Daniel S. Medwed, 162 defendants nationally have been exonerated by DNA testing. "So the foundation on which the criminal justice system rests has been rocked."

And DNA is only the tip of the wrongful convictions iceberg, says Medwed, who will participate in the UVSC symposium. Only 10 percent to 20 percent of criminal cases have any biological evidence at all, he says.