Court News
April 20, 2006
Supreme Court, Ohio State Host Seminar for Judges
The Supreme Court of Ohio, in cooperation with the Ohio State University , this week hosted the second Ohio session of a national program designed to prepare judges to preside over complex scientific issues likely to come before their courts.
A select group of 20 Ohio judges participated in this week's session of the Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource (ASTAR) program. Ohio is helping to spearhead ASTAR, which offers standardized training to judges around the country to handle the increasing volume of complex, high-tech cases on court dockets. This week's session at the Ohio State University Medical Center focused on reproductive medicine and covered issues such as human reproduction processes, current controversies in assisted reproduction, in vitro fertilization and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis/gender selection.
Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer serves on the ASTAR national board.
“Educating judges on science-related matters is a critical way for judges to prepare for the complicated issues that will come before the courts,” Chief Justice Moyer said.
Ohio State faculty members, medical professionals from Wright State University, Akron and Cleveland and the president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) served as instructors for the one-and-a-half day program.
Participants are expected to give back to the program by serving as faculty for future sessions and acting as resources for other judges who have complex science cases brought before them.
The judges who took part in this week's training also attended the first Ohio ASTAR seminar in January, which focused on agricultural issues, as well as previous training sessions held in North Carolina and Virginia. The next in-state training, “Computer Science and Related Technologies,” will take place May 18-19 at the Ohio Judicial Center in downtown Columbus.
ASTAR is a consortium of two states, Ohio and Maryland , that share the common goal of educating judges in science and technology issues. The initial national ASTAR seminar, a life sciences boot camp, was held in Virginia in October 2005.
Contact: Katie Riedel at 614.387.9250.