The Death Penalty Information Center held its 10th Annual Thurgood Marshall Journalism Awards at the National Press Club on Monday, June 26. This year’s award recipients were Jacqui Lofaro and Victor Teich of Justice Productions for their documentary “The Empty Chair,” and reporter Robert Nelson of the Phoenix New Times for his coverage of death row exoneree Ray Krone.
Lofaro and Teich received this year’s Award for excellence in the television broadcast category. Their documentary, “The Empty Chair,” aired last year on the Hallmark Channel’s World of Faith and Values television network. This documentary tells the story of murder victims’ families confronting the loss of their loved ones and explores whether the death penalty can address their pain.
Robert Nelson of the Phoenix New Times received this year’s Award for excellence in print journalism. Nelson’s article “About Face” profiled the case of Ray Krone, who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in Arizona before he was freed based on DNA evidence. The piece explores the state’s efforts to keep Krone behind bars, as well as Krone’s life after his exoneration. Krone and Renny Cushing of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights presented this year’s Thurgood Marshall Journalism Awards.
Michael Meltsner presented the keynote remarks. Meltsner is a law professor at Northeastern Law School in Boston and worked with the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. His latest book, “The Making of a Civil Rights Lawyer,” includes an examination of death penalty developments since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Gregg v. Georgia, an historic ruling that upheld newly crafted death penalty statutes and signaled the beginning of the modern era of capital punishment. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Gregg decision.
See DPIC’s Press Advisory, June 23, 2006; DPIC’s Journalism Awards page; view an excerpt from “The Empty Chair.” (pictured, l. to r., Richard Dieter, DPIC Executive Director, Victor Teich and Jacqui Lofaro, producers of The Empty Chair, Renny Cushing, Director of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights.)
