The Empty Chair: Death Penalty Yes or No is a doc­u­men­tary film pro­duced and direct­ed by Jacqui Lofaro and Victor Teich that tells the sto­ries of four fam­i­lies con­fronting the loss of loved ones and voic­ing dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on the death penal­ty. The movie also fea­tures Sister Helen Prejean, an author and spir­i­tu­al advi­sor to those con­demned to die, and Donald Cabana (pic­tured), a for­mer death row war­den in Mississippi.

Among the fam­i­ly mem­bers fea­tured in the film are Renny Cushing, whose father was mur­dered; Suse and Peter Lowenstein, whose son was killed by a ter­ror­ist plane-bomb­ing over Lockerbie, Scotland; Sue Norton, who chose to for­give the man who mur­dered her step-par­ents; and Susan Gove Ramunda, a tire­less advo­cate for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment whose daugh­ter was mur­dered. Each of these fam­i­ly mem­bers retraces the crime that took their loved one, the tri­al that fol­lowed, and their per­son­al response to the pun­ish­ment that was giv­en to the per­son con­vict­ed of the murder.

In the film, Prejean and Cabana share their first-hand expe­ri­ences with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and its impact on those con­demned to die, vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, and the staff who car­ry out exe­cu­tions. View a video clip of Warden Cabana dis­cussing how these exe­cu­tions affect­ed him.

This doc­u­men­tary will make its nation­al tele­vi­sion pre­miere on the Hallmark Channel at noon on June 12, 2005. It will be fea­tured as part of the network’s ​“World of Faith and Values” project. Get more infor­ma­tion about ​“The Empty Chair: Death Penalty Yes or No.” (May 30, 2005). See oth­er DPIC mul­ti­me­dia resources.

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