Miller wins national photography award

Wednesday, March 9, 2005 | 10:46 a.m.

As the District Court jury pronounced Mallorie Ray's mother and uncle guilty of the murder of her stepfather, Ray, then 18, collapsed in tears and into the arms of the woman beside her. She drew one hand to her face and with the other reached out.

Las Vegas Sun photographer Ethan Miller captured the dramatic courtroom moment in a photograph that originally ran Jan. 29, 2004, and it recently won Miller the Joseph Costa Courtroom Photography Award. It is Miller's second Joseph Costa award.

The national award is administered by Ball State University and honors photographers who have accurately and carefully captured the action of the courtroom.

"The winning entry will demonstrate the use of this communication tool in what is a highly sensitive and sometimes controversial situation," according to the university's description of the award.

Miller won the award the first time in 2000. He joins only one other photographer to have twice won the award.

Miller has been a staff photographer at the Las Vegas Sun since 1995. He graduated from Arizona State University in 1994 with a degree in photojournalism and served multiple internships at Arizona newspapers before moving to Las Vegas.

Among Miller's other awards are six first-place awards from the Nevada Press Association for spot news, features, and sports. He won a National Headliner Award for Feature Photography in 2002.

The Joseph Costa Courtroom Photography Award is named after the founder of the National Press Photographers Association. Costa was a lecturer at Ball State University and a strong advocate for the photographer's right to be in the courtroom.

Miller will travel to Muncie, Ind., to accept the award April 5.