Attorneys for Colorado death-row inmate Nathan Dunlap are working on a clemency petition in the hopes of persuading Gov. John Hickenlooper to spare the killer’s life.

Records show, however, that the petition will not be the first outreach by Dunlap’s attorneys to the governor’s office. E-mails provided to The Denver Post as part of an open-records request reveal that Dunlap’s attorneys have been in regular contact with members of Hickenlooper’s legal team.

The messages are mostly brief notes alerting Hickenlooper’s lawyers to new developments on death-penalty policies around the country or reports on capital punishment in Colorado. But they speak to a larger, quiet effort to change Hickenlooper’s mind on the death penalty, amid signs that the governor’s position has recently wavered.

That effort will gain more attention when a bill to repeal capital punishment is introduced in the legislature as soon as this week. For a man in charge of a state that hasn’t executed anyone in 15 years, Hickenlooper will soon have two big decisions to make on the death penalty.

“I think they’re listening. They’re always listening,” Lisa Cisneros, the executive director of Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said of the governor’s office. “But I don’t know where they’re leaning on it.”

Rep. Claire Levy, a Boulder Democrat expected to be one of the bill’s sponsors, said the bill would repeal the death penalty as a sentencing option on future crimes. For murders committed after the bill becomes law, the highest punishment would be life in prison without parole.

The bill would not affect current murder cases, such as the one against Aurora theater-shooting suspect James Holmes. It also would not have a direct impact on Dunlap, whose last guaranteed appeal was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last month. That decision cleared the way for an execution date to be set for Dunlap, who was convicted of killing four people in 1993 at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.

Levy said she has not received any indication as to whether Hickenlooper will support her bill.

“I don’t know anything other than the statements he has made publicly,” she said.

When Hickenlooper ran for office in 2010, he answered a Denver Post question about whether the death penalty should be repealed: “No, but it should be restricted.” Late last year, though, Hickenlooper was less decisive about the death penalty.

“I wrestle with this, right now, on a pretty much daily basis because we are in a position where we have a couple of death-row inmates that are going to come up, ” Hickenlooper told The Associated Press, “and I haven’t come to a conclusion.”

A Hickenlooper spokesman said the governor still hasn’t reached any conclusions — about the forthcoming bill or Dunlap’s case.

The governor could at any time commute Dunlap’s sentence to life in prison.

The documents provided to The Denver Post show that Dunlap’s attorneys have been in contact with the governor’s office at least since January 2011, when attorney Philip Cherner sent a letter to Charles Garcia, then special counsel to Hickenlooper, seeking clarity on how to file a death-penalty clemency petition. (The state does not have an established policy for such petitions.)

In the months since, Cherner and attorney Madeline Cohen have sent notes to Hickenlooper lawyers alerting them to news items and reports that argue against capital punishment.

“Jack/Stephanie, here’s a powerful op-ed from today’s New York Times,” reads one typical message, sent by Cherner to Jack Finlaw and Stephanie Donner, two of Hickenlooper’s attorneys. The message contained a link to an editorial about the international trend toward fewer executions.

The documents do not show any responses by Hickenlooper’s lawyers beyond thank-yous. Nor did The Post’s request — which asked for all correspondence related to the death penalty — turn up any e-mails by death-penalty supporters to the governor.

But capital punishment’s proponents also are preparing for the debate over the death penalty. In an editorial last month, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and Rep. Rhonda Fields — an Aurora Democrat whose son was killed by two men now on death row — said the issue should go to the state’s voters.

“That question is all too critical to every Coloradan not to be fully vetted,” the pair wrote. “And, to date, the vetting process is less than complete.”

John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/john_ingold