, 2007-02-12
Substitute teacher Julie Amero faces up to 40 years in prison for exposing kids to porn using a classroom computer, but the facts strongly suggest that she was wrongfully convicted. Many issues remain, from the need for an independent computer forensics investigation and the presence of spyware and adware on the machine, to bad or incomplete legal work on both sides of this criminal case.
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Mouse-Trapped
2007-02-13
Anonymous (6 replies)
Anonymous (6 replies)
Mouse-Trapped
2007-02-21
FreewheelinFrank (2 replies)
FreewheelinFrank (2 replies)
Mouse-Trapped - A lesson to be learned
2007-02-22
MikeP (1 replies)
MikeP (1 replies)
Enough. Enough e-mails, phone calls and letters to the editor defending Julie Amero. I?m sick of them. The worst part of all is that people jump to these conclusions without viewing any of the evidence or police documents. Here are the facts: Amero showed graphic pornography to up to 10 children in a Kelly Middle School class, according to a police investigation.
There was no magic, mysterious conspiracy to arrest and convict this woman. No group of students said, ?We hate this teacher and now we?re going to ruin her life.? There were no bungling school district administrators or evil police. Computer filters can?t stop every one of the millions of pornography Web sites from slipping through. Blaming the school, the police or anyone else for what Amero did is like blaming a rape victim for being raped. It?s sick, it?s wrong, it?s ignorant and it?s moronic. The school didn?t even bring charges up against Amero. The police did.
According to a Norwich police affidavit, ?the pornographic sites were almost continuously viewed from approximately 9:24 a.m. to approximately 11:11 a.m.? No one accidentally clicks on pornographic pop-ups advertisements for nearly two hours continuously. According to the affidavit, at least one of the Web sites required the person viewing the images to click on a box agreeing to terms of disclosure beforehand.
Here?s the kicker: AMERO WAS NOT CONVICTED OF LOOKING AT PORNOGRAPHY ON A SCHOOL COMPUTER. She was convicted of four counts of ?Risk of Injury to a Minor.? That means she was convicted of NOT DOING ENOUGH TO PREVENT CHILDREN FROM SEEING PORNOGRAPHY ON THE COMPUTER. Now, does she deserve 40 years in jail, of course not. She was offered probationary time, which would lead to her not having a criminal record, and she turned it down, according to her attorney. Now, she?s been convicted and she?ll face her sentence in March. I?m sure the judge will use prudence.
So even if you give Amero the benefit of the doubt, and you say the pornography was on the computer to begin with (and she simply found it there), then she should have covered the computer, unplugged it or forced the students to stand in the back of the room far away from the computer. Don?t let multiple children, all were younger than 16, see people performing sexual acts upon each other on a school computer screen. That?s just wrong.
posted by Daniel Axelrod at 3:36 PM
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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/434/34414#34414