Data on the Bureau of Justice Statistics website from the Supplementary Homicide Reports, Uniform Crime Reporting Program (see http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/homtrnd.htm), reveal that homicide trends have declined sharply since 1990, moving from a rate of 9.8 per 100,000 to 5.7 per 100,000 by 1999. This same site also displays a chart on national execution trends that reveals that thirteen percent fewer inmates were executed in 2000 than in 1999. Although these Bureau of Justice Statistics data on homicides and executions would suggest that homicide trends have decreased within the last decade, and that the mean number of 71 executions within the last five years (1995-2000) is lower than the actual number of executions for either 1999 (98) or 2000 (85) (data from Capital Punishment, January 2001, as cited by the Bureau of Justice Statistics Web Site- see http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance.htm), cautious interpretation of these data is necessary. For example, the mean execution average for 1984-1994 is 21.4, suggesting that these numbers are actually rising. In addition, available data indicate that the death penalty is not a deterrent to murder. Other arguments against such executions include: racial and regional bias, cruel and unusual punishment, and the possibility of innocence. Death penalty abolitionist groups such as Citizens for a Moratorium on Federal Executions (CMFE) are lobbying for a nationwide moratorium on capital punishment until further study about the fairness of federal executions is conducted. There are currently 38 death penalty states. States such as Nevada, California, and Illinois are at the forefront of this controversy. For example, Nevada has recently killed SB 254, a bill that proposed a partial moratorium (www.jgj.com, accessed 6/7/01), but the Assembly called for research on the death penalty in ACR 21.

The 1999 Columbine tragedy in Colorado and other events such as the more recent school shootings in California have opened the eyes of many educators, par

                   New Judicial Studies Program

In January, 2001 the "Master of Judicial Studies Degree Program" officially became "The Judicial Studies Program (JSP)." Prior to the new program's approval, and since its establishment in 1985 under the direction of James T. Richardson, Ph.D., J.D., the MJS program had offered only the Master's Degree in judicial studies. Judges who have completed the MJS Program may now enter into a degree program (JSP) to obtain a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). This new degree program is available only to graduates of the MJS program. The 2001 Program Description states that "the… program…is intended to provide a formal academic setting in which trial judges or juvenile and family court judges can integrate technical studies of the judiciary with more academic ones in an effort to provide an intellectual assessment of the role of the American judiciary." Under the collaboration of the University of Nevada Reno (UNR), The National Judicial College (NJC) and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), the program provides specially designed courses which treat judicially-related issues from a liberal arts perspective, including the humanities, social, behavioral and natural sciences, and communications; and provides a series of courses treating technical subject matter.   Please contact: Denise Schaar-Buis, Program Coordinator, at (775) 784-6270. http://www.dce.unr.edu/jsp/

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