DENVER -- Colorado is one step closer to doing away with the death penalty, after a Senate Committee approved the measure late Wednesday night.

After four hours of what one Senator described as “grueling, emotional” testimony, the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted 3-2 in favor of House Bill 1274.

“It really invites people to question their core belief system. Who do we want to be as a society,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora.

The bill would take some of the money now being used to prosecute death penalty cases and use it to investigate cold cases instead.

The proposal evokes strong emotions among people who have lost loved ones to violent crime.

“I think that Colorado needs to keep the death penalty,” said Barb Green-Crutcher, whose nephew, Javad Marshall-Fields, was gunned down with his fiancée, Vivian Wolfe, just before he was to testify in a murder trial.

“When I look at all the criminals coming into court, they have so many rights compared to us,” said Christine Wolfe, Vivian’s mom. “We should keep the death penalty.”

Bud Welsh has a different take on the matter.

His daughter was one of the victims of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

“I’d been opposed to the death penalty all my life,” Welsh said. “But I changed my mind for awhile after my daughter was killed.”

Welsh said that was just the desire for vengeance. He said after McVeigh was put to death it didn’t bring him the peace that he thought it would.

“Watching another human take his last breath is not the way God meant for it to happen,” Welsh said.

Lawmakers themselves have very strong feelings about the issue.

“I don’t like the proposal,” said Rep. Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs. “I believe that Coloradans have spoken twice in the last 40 years. They’ve said they like the death penalty as a sentencing option and I think the people have spoken.”

Carroll said the proposal boils down to a matter of money and public safety.

“If we ask ourselves what is the biggest single public safety risk we face in Colorado, clearly murderers who are out on the street who have not been apprehended, charged or tried are a bigger threat (than someone already in prison.)”

Proponents say Colorado spends $3 to $4 million a year dealing with death penalty cases.

For comparison purposes, they say incarceration costs for those individuals amount to about $30,000 a year.

The bill passed out of the House by a single vote at the urging of families of crime victims.

It will now go to the Senate Appropriations Committee and then the full Senate.

If it passes the Senate, the bill will then go to Gov. Bill Ritter, Denver's former district attorney.

Ritter hasn't said whether he'll sign it.