Misdemeanor Plea Ends Norwich Pornography Case 260
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Hartford Courant:
"Almost 18 months after a pornography conviction that could have sent her to jail for 40 years was thrown out, former Norwich substitute teacher Julie Amero plead guilty to a single charge of disorderly conduct Friday afternoon. The plea deal before Superior Court Judge Robert E. Young in Norwich ends a long-running drama that attracted attention from around the world. ... She had originally been charged with 10 counts of risk of injury to a minor and later convicted on four of them. ... In June of 2007, Judge Hillary B. Strackbein tossed out Amero's conviction on charges that she intentionally caused a stream of 'pop-up' pornography on the computer in her classroom and allowed students to view it. Confronted with evidence compiled by forensic computer experts, Strackbein ordered a new trial, saying the conviction was based on 'erroneous' and 'false information.'"
About Time (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:New Meaning (Score:3, Interesting)
And the next time a porn picture pops up on your computer while you are trying to navigate to some kids site, while your childing are waiting and watching, shall we indict you for aiding and abetting the abuse of a minor?
Disgraceful DA (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:About Time (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that could very well be... But we all know that society's stance on "adult content" is ridiculous.
Had the teacher's computer shown pictures of guns, or someone getting maimed from styleproject, this would have never gone to court. If it had gotten any media attention at all, it would have been 10 seconds on the nightly news about a computer mishap.
Re:Baka. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just another reason why computer crimes need special courts to process cases...
Nonsense. The problem is in the officers of the court. You'll either end up filling the computer crimes court with idiots, or if you figure out a way to get non-idiots in positions of power, you might as well do that for the regular courts.
The court officials are probably not geneticists either, yet presumably they deal with DNA evidence at least occassionally.
Re:Travesty (Score:1, Interesting)
First a little technical education, something that shouldn't be needed on /. The teacher likely typo'd a URL, which lead to a porn site. Once she realized what it was, she probably tried to "back" or close the browser immediately.
Now for the educational part: Some pron sites have been known to include javascript to open a new window (or two) if you close the current one. THe more you close, the more they open. It's called "Mousetrapping". Just from the article summary, this is quite likely what happened to her and hardly her fault.
It was an accident, and she did nothing wrong. This is still a travesty, but at least it isn't as horrific as it could be.
Re:About Time (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, there are prosecutors and cops out there who will keep going after every case until they get "something" out of it. Even after an acquittal, they will basically put the defendant under a microscope and keep dragging them in on new charges until they get some sort of a guilty plea or conviction.
This is really common with organized crime prosecutions, with John Gotti being a textbook example. It took several tries, but they did finally get him.
erroneous and false conviction .. (Score:5, Interesting)
don't talk to cops [youtube.com]
Re:If this were a man, (Score:5, Interesting)
The body of psychological evidence indicates that children are suggestible, that memory is malleable, and that kids will report sexual abuse even when it did not occur. I'm remembering a famous experiment described in intro psychology courses: The setup was this: A toddler was taken into a mock doctor's office for a "checkup," in which the experimenter did nothing more than tie a small red string around the child's finger; this was videotaped by a hidden camera. Then, the child was interviewed in the manner common in sex-abuse legal cases at the time, in which she was presented with a doll and asked to indicate whether the doctor had touched her, and where. After repeated, gentle, innocuous-seeming questioning, the child reported obscene things that I could have not come up with myself; among other things, she reported that the doctor had rammed a stick into her vagina, which she pantomimed violently (the interview was also videotaped). What seems to have happened is that she responded subliminally to subtle, unintentional cues from the interviewer, and reported whatever the interviewer was afraid to (or wanted to?) hear. It's essentially the same phenomenon as what occurred with Clever Hans [wikipedia.org], the horse that could "do arithmetic." The horse was posed questions in the form of marks on the ground, and would tap out the answer -- one tap to say "one," two taps to say "two," etc -- in response. It astounded all observers, but what was actually happening is that the horse was picking up on the crowd's reaction to his tapping: Tension would build as he approached the right number, and then immediately release; this is when he would stop. In any event, the point is that apparently cut-and-dry testimonies are anything but, and people -- especially, but not just, children -- are hugely suggestible, and can honestly remember things that never happened as a subliminal response to unintentional bias in the interviewer.
The conclusion you're forced to draw is that there are hundreds of innocent men now in jail for sex crimes, especially crimes against children, that they didn't commit. The sad irony is that sexual abuse really is now happening -- in jail, and these men are the victims.
Re:Baka. (Score:3, Interesting)
And, having spent some quality time in a district courthouse (hey, it was a series of field outings in a class on the Justice system!) I can tell you that the geriatric judge stereotype is just that- a stereotype. I never saw one under 30 but I didn't see any older than their early 50's.
Re:Justice Still Not Done (Score:3, Interesting)
Par for the course in the justice system. There's a cronyistic network set up to protect bad cops, bad judges and bad prosecutors. If there's one reform I'd like to see, it should be that if someone if falsely convicted based on bad evidence, the cops, prosecutors and judge involved should be forced to serve that person's *full* sentence instead, while that person collects their wages and pensions. Make this sort of thing so horrifyingly damage for bad cops and lawyers that they'll do what they're supposed to do, and presume innocence.
Re:Baka. (Score:3, Interesting)
I work for a court as tech support. Many, many of our judges are as described: not inclined to learn the finer details of computers, and don't have the fundamental understanding of how computers work. But they are beginning to, as spam and spyware impacts them on a personal level, an understanding is slowly coming.
I believe that the problem, as was posted earlier, is that many of the judges are far past retirement age and not willing to start learning a whole new branch of knowledge. DNA evidence has an established record of working and has precedent in court, and while new (relatively speaking) doesn't change as quickly as computer technology does. Remember, spam was a nuisance 10 years ago; now it's what, 80 some percent of our world internet traffic? Spyware didn't exist 15 years ago; now you have to watch where you click because some companies will hold your machine ransom because you thought you clicked on a free virus scan.
Additionally, DNA and forensic evidence (for instance) deals with proving someone guilty of a specific crime, it's used as evidence to support crimes such as murder, kidnapping, or rape -- a much more personal, physical set of crimes with a limited scope that the technology applies to: defendant was or wasn't at the scene of the crime. Compared to computer and technology "crimes", of which computer technology evidence introduced into court could be literally anything from network protocol analysis to hard drive sector recovery, with different applications and results to each of those, it becomes evident that there's a much wider spectrum of facts and case law that needs to be established, and to be honest, a whole new branch of education that would need to be taken on for a judge to truly understand enough of the aspects to make informed decisions.
That is why they call experts to the stand, question them on the facts, and then move on.
Our younger judges that are coming on board, however, have a much better grasp on the technology side -- at least the usage of technology -- and I think will be able to tackle these kinds of cases in the coming years with more favorable results.
However, I still have one question. Why didn't the defense team introduce more forensic evidence showing how vile and pervasive spyware and spam can be? Or was it just that the jury didn't like that she didn't keep kids away from the screen while the spyware was popping up porn?
Re:Common sense? (Score:3, Interesting)
Adblock Plus? Are you daft? There should have been network based measures in place to defend against this type of crap.
My guess is they have effectively no IT department, especially given that they are using Windows 98 in classrooms when it is completely unsecurable, and seem to have zero protective measures in place or policies or teacher training.
More than a few people need a serious punch in the crotch over this and the poor woman needs to be cleared and reinstated and issued a full public apology.
Sends a clear message (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only did they go after her again, but they refused to go after the cop who lied in court about the forensic evidence, and the prosecutors who suppressed a state forensic report that concluded the popups were from spyware.
It sends a clear message that our criminal "justice" system is seriously broken. And it sends the unintended message that if you're smart and have an option, avoid teaching or substitute teaching, don't volunteer for Scouts or church activities that have anything to do with young people. You could even take it to the extreme of refusing to help a child in distress or render aid if a parent isn't around, because where kids are concerned, law enforcement is totally off the reservation. Something like this incident or a false charge and you could be dragging an arrest record around the rest of your life. It's just not worth the risk. That used to be a paranoid attitude but it doesn't seem so paranoid today.
So the next time you're tempted to complain about a lack of math and science teachers, remember this incident. The only people willing to get involved will be other parents and, ironically, the predators.
Re:Sends a clear message (Score:5, Interesting)
You could even take it to the extreme of refusing to help a child in distress or render aid if a parent isn't around, because where kids are concerned, law enforcement is totally off the reservation. Something like this incident or a false charge and you could be dragging an arrest record around the rest of your life. It's just not worth the risk. That used to be a paranoid attitude but it doesn't seem so paranoid today.
This has already happened. I can't and don't have more time find the story now, but IIRC in the UK a few years ago, a lone male motorist noticed a little girl wandering alone in the woods. He felt he should stop and make sure she was okay, but was worried that if someone (like her parents) came across the scene they'd get the wrong idea (or worse, the girl would get the wrong idea and run screaming to her parents) and he'd go through exactly what you described, so he went on his way.
Shortly after, the girl fell into a nearby river and drowned.
He felt terrible when the news broke and told his story afterwards, and opinions were fairly evenly divided between disgust at his inaction and agreeing with his line of thinking, which goes to show that by "Think[ing] of the children!" you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
CIPA? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't the school be liable under CIPA?
Aren't they supposed to have monitoring and filtering in place?
Re:Justice Still Not Done (Score:2, Interesting)
Everyone is entitled to their opinions but the law of the land is that everyone IS innocent until proven guilty, no matter those individuals' opinions and as such, they need to keep those opinions to themselves and do their jobs. If they're biased and can't do so, they need to recluse themselves from the case and let justice be done by someone with a clear mind.
Re:If this were a man, (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not that they remember fictional events, they simply report fictional events. Big difference. The child is aware that it's a fabrication.
What makes you say this? What I've read indicates just the opposite -- that children, and eyewitnesses in general, can honestly remember things that never happened. Memory is fallible, and the mind fills in gaps without you consciously realizing it.
Re:About Time (Score:3, Interesting)
But we all know that society's stance on "adult content" is ridiculous.
Well, guns aren't prohibited from minors viewing them, and I don't seem to remember anything about gore...
That was exactly kobaz's point. Sex is not illegal but showing pictures of sex to minors is. Shooting someone with a gun is illegal, but showing pics of someone shooting someone else to minors is not.