Late in 2005, Congress passed in the Science, State, Commerce and Justice appropriations act, PL 109-108, a public service earmark. The mandate requested the U. S. Department of Justice to fund, upon application and review, an expansion of the science and technology resource judge program to all United States jurisdictions.

ASTAR received an award from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, US DOJ in the last quarter of 2006 to implement the mandate.

Invitations were sent to every State Judiciary in December, 2006 and judges were enrolled through mid-February 2007. Federal courts were invited through the four regional science and technology "boot-camps" established Spring and Summer in Annapolis, Chapel Hill, Seattle and Columbus.

39 jurisdictions and 144 judges enrolled in the program's Platform A boot camps. 215 judges accepted ASTAR's invitation to attend the National Judges' Science School at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine - Neuroscience and Bio-Behavioral Technologies - October 5-7 2007.

The national program is well described in a Frequently-Asked Questions document available by email attachment from ASTAR.

Its elements are simple:

• 120 hours learning the terms of reference of court-related science and technology evidence and issues
• A new applications module comprised of on-line case conferences and judicial education planning competition
• A new method of creating Chambers-based science reference desk books
• Election, upon completion, as ASTAR Fellows, the gateway to Platform B's advanced judicial Institutes

The program is led by an unsurpassably talented group of science advisors, whose jobs are much more complex than the program's simple elements might imply. We are grateful to each and recognize in this web site only a leading few:

C.V. Dang, MD, PhD (Johns Hopkins University), J. P. Evans, MD, PhD (University of North Carolina), A. E. Guttmacher, MD (Genome Research Institute, NIH), L.B. Jorde, Ph.D., University of Utah, G. L. Harris, PhD (Howard University), T. C. Hazen, PhD (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), P. C. Kuszler, MD, JD (University of Washington), E. Stein, PhD (Drug Abuse Institute, NIH), J.J. Valdes, PhD (U. S. Army), D.Vereen, MD, MPH (Drug Abuse Institute, NIH), N. D. Volkow, MD (Drug Abuse Institute, NIH) D.F. Wong, MD, PhD (Johns Hopkins University)

U. S. Department of Justice does not necessarily endorse the viewpoints expressed in this Web Site.