peter he's the executive director of the death penalty information center in washington thanks for joining us this evening i'd like to begin by clarifying play rights activists claim the use of this controversial drug for execution leads to an excruciatingly painful death is that the case as you see it but it's not this drug it's not all that's extremely painful it's the problem is that most states are using it as part of the three drug cocktail and the next two drugs are very painful everyone agrees on so all depends on the first drug working properly and of course it's not designed for executions it's designed for things as you mentioned like epilepsy so it could be that it's not working and the second and third drugs or very painful but costly paralyze the inmate no one knows you can't tell they have no reaction contracts they previously use for a lethal injections were considered one of the more i.q. main ways to carrying out obviously because like you say it's less painful for the death penalty why has there been the switch away from that in terms of the humane side so yes you said it

death penalty? on the team today is kent shydigger, legal director of the criminal justice legal foundation, and richard dieter, executive director of the death penalty information centera hot topic. kent, i'd like to start with you. leaving out the moral debate here, okay? this is just about money. from a purely economic standpoint should the death penalty be abolished? >> no. as the study pointed out, we have been to the legislature many times with reform proposals and those reform proposals have been killed by the legislature in committee every time we've been there. death penalty doesn't need to cost as much as it does. we know what to do. we've drafted legislation. we've proposed legislation. the legislature simply needs to enact three forms needed to bring these cases to a conclusion much faster than they presently are, at much less cost. >> richard, let me bring you in here. is the kind of increased cost seen in california do you think the same for other states? >> well, all states have experienced that it's more expensive to have the death penalty than to have a system of sentencing people to life without parole. and that's why states like illinois, new york, n