Western students will get to debate the death penalty at a forum Tuesday.

The forum will take place at 6 p.m. in Cherry Hall Auditorium.

Kate Miller, program associate for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said more than 130 people have been found innocent after being on death row in the last 30 years.

She said the statistic is one of the reasons why the ACLU is sponsoring the forum.

“It’s really important to get people thinking about the death penalty,” Miller said.

Elizabethtown sophomore Nick Asher, a member of Americans for Informed Democracy, said there are many different opinions about the death penalty.

“Some people aren’t as well rounded about it as they could be,” he said. “So this forum can help educate them.”

Miller said students are welcome to go and voice any opinions about the death penalty.

Randall Wheeler, a former public defender with the Department of Public Advocacy, said the forum is also being sponsored to educate students on the negatives of the death penalty.

Wheeler and Miller will be panelists at the forum, according to the event’s Facebook group.

Wheeler, who spent 25 years working on death penalty cases, said it’s more costly to execute a criminal than to sentence them to life without parole.

He said a large amount of money is spent because of the complexity of the process, and that the rest of the world is abandoning the death penalty.

“There’s an increasing consensus that the death penalty is not needed,” he said.

Wheeler said the ACLU sponsored a similar forum earlier this year at Murray State University that was well attended by students.

Lexington junior Greg Capillo said it’s important that students are informed about the death penalty.

“We’re part of a generation that’s incredibly politically active,” he said. “We’re going to be the people running things in the future, so we need to be educated on issues like this.”