New Hampshire could become the next American state to outlaw the death penalty, if lawmakers were persuaded by testimony this week which likened the state's criminal justice system to those of countries such as North Korea and Iraq.

A former New Hampshire supreme court chief justice, John Broderick, told a hearing of the state senate’s judiciary committee on Thursday that senators there – one of nine states in which repeal efforts are active – should vote to scrap a punishment that is used by brutal regimes.

"I hope New Hampshire does not miss this opportunity to stand up and stand out in the 21st century," Broderick said, according to the Associated Press. "We're better than that, as a people and as a nation. We value human life, even the lives of those who do evil things. I hope New Hampshire does not miss this opportunity to stand up and stand out in the 21st century."

The Democratic-held New Hampshire house last month convincingly passed a repeal bill proposed by Representative Renny Cushing, whose father and brother-in-law were both murdered. However, a much closer vote is expected in the Republican-controlled senate.

If passed, the law would make New Hampshire the 19th state to abolish the death penalty. It would apply only to future cases and not to the state’s only current death-row prisoner, Michael Addison, who was convicted of killing a police officer in Manchester in 2006.

Legislative attempts to repeal the death penalty are ongoing in some form in the state legislatures of Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio and Washington, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center.

However, Arizona’s Republican-controlled state senate is unlikely to approve a proposal by Democratic state senators to amend the state’s constitution to prohibit the death penalty. In Delaware, a bill to repeal the death penalty was narrowly passed by the state senate, but has languished in the state’s house judiciary committee since April last year.

A bill aiming to repeal the death penalty in Florida had its first reading on the floor of the state house of representatives last month. An identical bill has also been introduced in the state senate. However, repeal campaigners acknowledge that progress is highly unlikely, given the Republican party’s control of both chambers of the legislature and the governorship.

Hearings were heard in January on a repeal bill tabled in the state senate in Kansas, which has not executed any prisoners since the death penalty bill was reinstated in 1994. Repeal bills were introduced in both chambers of the Kentucky legislature in February this year, with legislators stressing that defending death penalty cases costs the state millions of dollars a year.

A pair of repeal proposals in the Missouri house and senate have not progressed since stalling last year. Democrats in Ohio introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty late last year.

“It is a punishment which has been shown to be administered with disparities across economic and racial lines while failing as a deterrent to violent crime,” Ohio representative Nickie Antonio wrote in February. However, with Republicans again controlling the state’s house, senate and governorship, repeal advocates are not optimistic.

Prospects are brighter In Washington state, where Governor Jay Inslee last month announced a moratorium that would halt any executions during his tenure. A state senate bill aiming to repeal the penalty altogether, which did not pass the legislature during the last session, is expected to be reintroduced.