Roland Nicholson

Roland Nicholson, born February 8, 1950 was elected Chairman of the Fortune Society in 1997. He is also a consultant and arbitrator specializing in election law. He earned a BA from Morgan State University in 1970 and a JD from the Hofstra University School of Law in 1974. He was selected to be a Reginald Heber Smith Law Fellow in 1974. Upon completion of his fellowship and active duty service as an Army officer Nicholson became a staff member of the New York State Legislature. In 1982 he was the co-author of a study which highlighted the fact that it was a much greater burden on taxpayers to execute an individual convicted of a capital crime than it was to keep that individual incarcerated for the remainder of his or her life. The rationale for this is the fact that when the cost of the legal procedures that are required to ensure a fair trial are calculated along with the cost of appeals and a Federal Habeas Corpus proceeding, it is far more expensive to kill the convicted person than it would be to feed and house the inmate for the remainder of her life.

Nicholson was raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from the Frederick Douglass High School.

He currently resides in New York City. He is a member of the Electoral Reform Society (United Kingdom) and has been designated as an arbitrator by the mayor of Xian (PRC).

OTHER WRITING

*"Life in Death", Black Enterprise Magazine, May 1983

*"State Inflicted Death at One Million Dollars a Person", New York Times, April 29, 1982

*"Elections in Hong Kong", New York Times, September 17, 1992

*"A Prison Doesn't Offer Jobs for the Future", New York Times, September, 23, 1983

*"China's Death Penalty", New York Times, May 24, 2001

*"Death Penalty Holdout", New York Times, June 9, 2006

*"Death Penalty Revisted", New York Times, December 18, 2006

*"Private Business,Public Trust", New York Times, July 22, 2007

*"Letter From Fort Jackson: To Correct an Injustice", New York, October 29, 2007

INTERNET
U.S. Department of Justice Case Study
-DOJ 11-03
 
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