The 2006 ASTAR National Judges' Medical School was held at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine March 8-11. 61 judges and 29 faculty members participated in a highly evaluated series of medical briefings, grand rounds and case adjudication clinics. One highlight was a moot court that focused on a case scenario alleging criminal misconduct in a treatment modality. Chef Judge Eric T. Washington, DC Court of Appeals and an ASTAR Director, presided in the oral argument of an appeal to overturn the trial judges' denial that an indictment against health care providers be dismissed. Douglas B. Mishkin, Esq., represented the Attorney General in the case; Daniel M. Freeman, Esq., represented the defendant health care provider.

Maryland conducted three 3-day in-state science workshops for its 23 resource judges and Ohio conducted four 2-day in-state workshops for its 20 resource judges between January 2006 and September 2006. This gargantuan effort made possible completion of 120 hours Platform A training by these judges, leading to the election of all 43 as ASTAR Fellows on October 5, 2006 by the ASTAR Board of Directors. Curricula for the in-State workshops are available from Debra B. Koehler, ASTAR coordinator at the Judicial Institute of Maryland, [email protected] and from Lisa Sharron, ASTAR assistant at the Ohio Judicial College, [email protected].

On August 28, 2006 the U. S. Department of Justice awarded ASTAR a grant to ramp up the Ohio and Maryland ASTAR program to a national scale. By March 1, 2007, 39 jurisdictions had opted into the program and plans were made to host up to 215 judges in it over the next two years.

37 Illinois judges joined the 43 ASTAR Fellows at the 2006 National Judges Science School-novel bioscience: evidence, expert witnesses and causation-at the John Marshall Law School October 6-8 2006. Evolutionary biology, rogue microbes and childhood cancer comprised the daily subject themes. Keynoters were Hon. John E. Jones III, US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania; Mark Ryland, Esq., former Washington Office head for the Discovery Institute; and Alan E. Guttmacher, MD, Deputy Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH.

Hon. Sarah Evans Barker, US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Hon. Thomas R. Fitzgerald, Justice, Supreme Court of Illinois, and Dean W. H. Knight were newly elected as ASTAR Directors for five year terms.

ASTAR conducted for the New York Institute of Judicial Studies a Complex Evidence workshop October 31-November 2. 65 judges attended.

ASTAR's National Programs and Project Oversight Committees approved six programs at their sequential meetings on December 8 at the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

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