DPIC Bestows Thurgood Marshall Journalism Awards at National Press Club Luncheon

The Death Penalty Information Center held its 10^th 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 30^th 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.)