The Center's senior counsel Stephen B. Bright received the American Bar Association's 1998 Thurgood Marshall Award on August 1, 1998, at the ABA annual meeting in Toronto, Canada. The award, established in 1992, recognizes an individual's long-term contributions to the advancement of civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights in the United States.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall received the inaugural award in 1992. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg received the award in 1999. Other recipients include Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., Columbia University professor Jack Greenberg, and Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Click here for Steve's remarks accepting the Thurgood Marshall Award.

Prof. Muriel Morisey of Temple University presents Steve Bright with the ABA Thurgood Marshall Award.

Robert H. Bensing, a Center attorney who died on February 3, 1998, in an automobile accident returning from visiting clients at a south Georgia prison, posthumously was awarded the American Bar Association's Dorsey Award at the ABA Annual Meeting in Atlanta in August, 1999. Mary Schlegel accepted the award for her husband.

The Dorsey Award was established in 1995 as a tribute to Charles H. Dorsey, Jr., long-time executive director of Maryland's Legal Aid Bureau. It recognizes exceptional work of a public defender or legal services attorney. Robert Bensing began his career as a VISTA attorney in Montana. He work with Legal Services in Pennsylvania and Prisoners Legal Services in New York before joining the Center. When he was not representing prisoners, Bob Bensing volunteered his time to representing immigrants in Texas and Florida.

Mary Schlegel accepts the ABA's Dorsey Award for her late husband, Robert F. Bensing.

"When you think about dying in the line of duty you think about policemen and firemen, not lawyers," Mary Schlegel observed in accepting the award. "Bob died doing what he loved. How many of us get to do what we really enjoy? How many of us have left such a mark? Bob's life was short, but his legacy of prison litigation is long. So go out and follow that star ­ life is too short to do otherwise."

Tanya Greene, who served as Death Penalty Resource Counsel of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, placed at the Center, received the Reebok Human Rights Award on March 24, 1999, for her outstanding work in representing those facing the death penalty.

Greene came to the Center as its first Harry A. Blackmun Fellow in 1995, after graduating from Harvard Law School. Two years later, she later became NACDL resource counsel and took on responsibilities for coordinating that organization's efforts regarding the death penalty for three years before leaving the Center in September, 2000.

Tanya Greene

In addition to representing people at all stages of the process and winning new trials for people sentenced to death, Greene had conducted three highly successful programs to teach lawyers, investigators and social workers how to present mitigating evidence at the penalty phase of a capital case, helped start the "Life Vote" project to examine why jurors reject the death penalty and voted for life, recruited lawyers to represent those facing death, and consulted with and provided information to lawyers throughout the country involved in representing those facing the death penalty.

The Center's work has been recognized on numerous other occasions. The American Civil Liberties Union awarded Bright and Bryan A. Stevenson its Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty in 1991 for "extraordinary contributions to civil liberties in the United States." The National Legal Aid & Defender Association presented Bright with its Kutak-Dodds Prize in 1992 for "extraordinary vision and inspiring leadership in the struggle against capital punishment; for his powerful advocacy on behalf of death row inmates throughout the South; and his unwavering conviction that those who face the worst penalty have a right to the best lawyers."

The California Attorneys for Criminal Justice presented Bright with its "Significant Contributions to Criminal Justice Award" on December 11, 1999, in Oakland. The Columbia Human Rights Law presented Bright with its award for Leadership in Human Rights on April 14, 1999. Bright also received the Brandeis Medal, presented by the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law of the University of Louisville on March 12, 1998; the Outstanding Leadership in the Public Interest Award, presented by the Emory Public Interest Committee, Emory Law School on February 5, 1998; and the Henry R. Heyburn Alumni Public Service Award, presented by the University of Kentucky College of Law Alumni Association, on June 17, 1998.

New York University School of Law has awarded the Recent Graduate Award for "significant professional achievement of an alumnus/a of the Law School who graduated within the last 10 years" to two Center attorneys.  Charlotta Norby won the award on April 19, 1997, and Ty Alper won the award on April 5, 2003.

Charlotta Norby wins the "Recent Graduate Award" at NYU School of Law.  At left is former SCHR Staff Attorney Ty Alper; at right is former SCHR law student intern Jennie Pittman.