Jack Payden-Travers didn't have to say what he was calling about. All he had to say was, "This is Jack."

"I can tell you what Jack's question is going to be," Gov. Mark Warner said last Tuesday during a call-in show on WVTF public radio.

Sure enough, the head of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty was calling - again - to ask the governor to order DNA testing that could determine whether the state executed an innocent man.

For the past two years, Warner has been considering the request from Centurion Ministries, a group that believes Roger Keith Coleman was executed in 1992 for a rape and murder he did not commit.

Warner promised last week that he will make a decision "very soon."

Although DNA has been used to exonerate 13 people on death row since 1993 nationwide, there has never been a case in which posthumous testing proved the innocence of an executed man, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington D.C.

With public support for capital punishment weakening, scientific proof that the system is not fail-safe "would be more than just a blip" in the process, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the group.

"Those who don't want to see an innocent person executed would realize this is a distinct possibility," Dieter said. "It's not just a theoretical problem."

Well aware of the potential for Coleman's case to shape that debate, people such as Payden-Travers have followed the matter closely.

Payden-Travers said he has asked Warner about the case at least five times during radio call-in shows over the past two years. His group also plans to send the governor one postcard a day for the rest of his term, each signed by a different state resident who supports the testing.

"We are committed to bird-dogging Gov. Warner until such time as he orders the tests," Payden-Travers said. "The more he delays, the more it looks like Virginia has something to hide."

Two years ago today, Centurion Ministries turned to Warner as a last resort after state courts refused to resurrect Coleman's case by ordering the tests. The New Jersey-based group, which investigates possible wrongful convictions, is not affiliated with Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The governor is clearly in no rush.

Many people familiar with Coleman's case say they believe additional DNA tests would only confirm his guilt. But the mere chance of a different result is enough to give a politician pause - especially in a pro-capital punishment state like Virginia. Political observers said most governors would rather not deal with that kind of fallout.

Warner is under no legal obligation to act. And unlike most capital cases, the life of a condemned man is no longer at stake. So sitting on a request like the one from Centurion Ministries is "a no-brainer," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.

Sabato said he suspects that if Warner were to order the tests, he might wait until late in the year. That way, the next governor would inherit whatever controversy might follow.

Virginia's attorney general's office has strongly objected to the testing, saying there is no need to reopen a case that was decided beyond a reasonable doubt more than two decades ago.

Coleman was convicted in 1982 of raping and murdering his sister-in-law in her home on the banks of Slate Creek, which runs through the town of Grundy in far Southwest Virginia. The former coal miner was executed 10 years later, proclaiming his innocence from the electric chair, in a case that attracted national publicity.

At issue today is a 24-year-old piece of evidence - a sperm sample taken from Wanda McCoy's body - that still exists in the freezer of a California scientist.

Because DNA testing did not exist at the time of Coleman's trial, authorities could only use blood typing on the sample to narrow a pool of suspects to include Coleman. Since then, Centurion Ministries has argued, advances in technology make it possible to either confirm his guilt or exonerate him with one final test of the evidence.

Warner said last week on the radio show that his office has been in discussions with Centurion Ministries. The group investigated the case after Coleman's conviction and became convinced of his innocence.

"I know that there are concerns that Jack and others have had that for some time this has been dragging on," Warner said. "I'd rather take the criticism that I'm taking my time, because I want to make the right choice."