A committee in the New Hampshire House of Representatives has advanced a measure to repeal the state's death penalty.
A bipartisan vote of 14-3 in the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee on Tuesday sends the bill to the full House, perhaps as early as next week.
The bill faces an uncertain future in the Republican-led Senate.
Arnie Alpert of the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said the vote shows momentum toward repeal.
The Legislature voted to repeal capital punishment in 2000, but then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed the bill.
Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan has said she supports repeal as long as it is not applied retroactively to the case of Michael Addison, who was sentenced to die for killing a Manchester police officer in 2006.