Teacher Julie Amero Gets a New Trial

LazloHollyfeld writes "A New London Superior court judge this morning granted a defense request seeking a new trial for Julie Amero, the former Norwich middle school substitute teacher convicted of exposing her middle school students to Internet porn. Acting on a motion by Amero's attorney, William Dow III, Judge Hillary Strackbein placed the case back on a trial list. Amero had faced 40 years on the conviction of four counts of risk of injury to a minor. State prosecutor David Smith confirmed that further forensic examination at the state crime lab of Amero's classroom computer revealed "some erroneous information was presented during the trial. Amero and her defense team claimed she was the victim of pop-up ads — something that was out of her control. Judge Strackbein said because of the possibility of inaccurate facts, Amero was "entitled to a new trial in the interest of justice." After the brief court appearance, a smiling Amero stood next to her attorney. "I feel very comfortable with the decision," Amero said. Dow commended the state for investigating the case further. A new court date has yet to be scheduled. Amero has reentered a not guilty plea."

40 years?!?

[Myrrh (53301)]

40 years? For this? Good lord. Aren't there any real criminals we could lock up instead? It's insane.

I'd consider even four years to be excessive for such an offense.

Re:40 years?!?

[BoRegardless (721219)]

Teachers don't get 4 years for doing it with students.

Re:40 years?!?

[QCompson (675963)]

Teachers don't get 4 years for doing it with students.

Don't put any ideas into the heads of legislators. Instead of decreasing the 40 year penalty for this crime, they'll just ramp up other punishments until they're 40 years. Kissing a student: 40 years. Waving hello suggestively to a student: 40 years. Having a student interpret your cough as sexual: 40 years. As far as I can tell, sentences almost never become more lenient, they just get progressively harsher and more draconian.

Re:40 years?!?

[Myrrh (53301)]

I'm a dad, and I'm far more outraged that this woman's life could potentially be thrown away over a mistake than I am outraged that a few kids might have been—OMG—exposed to porn.

lazy

[crAckZ (1098479)]

i remember when teachers would have sex with the students. now they just show you internet porn. techers at public schools have gotten so lazy. Do it right or dont do it.

Re:lazy

[AccUser (191555)]

Do it right or dont do it.

Hadn't you heard? Those who can, do. Those who can't teach.

Injury....

[Brian Ribbon (986353)]

"....risk of injury to a minor"

Indeed, I'm sure the boys were horrified when they had to tolerate pop-up porn after being able to view the stuff they'd bought with their mom's credit card....

Forty years in jail?

[demiurgency (1072428)]

This whole topic makes me so incredibly furious. Forty years in jail, for being the vicitm of spyware? Even if the defendant used a school laptop in at home and visited some questionable sites, that should at most earn her a fine, as a strict warning to other educators that extremely careful to not bring a laptop into the class when it might be compromised. The only real justice here would be if the creator of that pop-up ad/spyware would be tracked down by their 1-900 number and they be convicted to forty years in jail. This is an utter failure of the justice system.

You guys are great!

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm happily posting from an European country. I remember a handful of events like this, usually with those "videotape" thingies you hardly remember anymore...well, back to the story. Occasionally it was the teacher who made a little mistake, more often it was one of the kids who smuggled in some porn when the teacher wasn't watching. The latter happened a few times in my class. I was maybe 13. (Never was the one who smuggled it, though. Honestly!)

Now, what was the reaction, from both the kids and the parents?

Basically, "Hee hee." Maybe some frowning by those few who actually go to church (quite rare around here) but that's all. If you even tried suing over this, you'd more likely get fined for being a crackpot and wasting the court's time.

"Injury to a minor"? 40 years? This would be some great comedy if it wasn't true. Now it's tragicomedy.

Porn inflicts injuries now?

[LighterShadeOfBlack (1011407)]

Amero had faced 40 years on the conviction of four counts of risk of injury to a minor

Risk of injury! What, were they worried the children would all go blind or something?

Add'l Info

[Evets (629327)]

According to http://www.courant.com/news/local/hcu-amerotrial-0 606,0,4739321.story [courant.com] the state is unlikely to prosecute her a second time.

Also, there, it states that her sentencing was postponed 4 times this spring as the state considered new evidence. It's not clear how much - if any - time was spent in jail.

It's disturbing that the teachers unions did not come to her defense, or at least push to have more light shed on the situations that teachers face regularly in the classroom. Yeah, this girl was a substitute, but the case has a large bearing on teachers in general.

If I was sent to investigate this situation, and ran into a pregnant substitute teacher who was given instructions not to turn off the computer under any circumstances it would be hard not to take a look at the potential pop-up/spyware situation. Is there nobody that works for the police department, prosecutors office, the school, or the school board who has any real IT experience?

We covered the original conviction...

[boyko.at.netqos (1024767)]

at length on NetworkPerformanceDaily.com [networkper...edaily.com]

Here are some links to stories we did:

• The Strange Case of Ms. Julie Amero: An Introduction [networkper...edaily.com]
• The Strange Case of Ms. Julie Amero: Commentary by Mr. Herb Horner [networkper...edaily.com] (Witness for the Defense)
• The Strange Case of Ms. Julie Amero: More Information In The Interlude [networkper...edaily.com] (Covers Steve DelGiorno, CEO of ComputerCOP software, which featured in the trial)
• The Strange Case of Ms. Julie Amero: Commentary by Detective Mark Lounsbury [networkper...edaily.com] (Witness for the Prosecution)
• The IT Management Implications of the Strange Case of Julie Amero [networkper...edaily.com]

Happened to us - sort of...

[evil_aar0n (1001515)]

When I served on our local school board, one of our teachers had pop-ups take over his screen when a student used the PC while the teacher was logged in. He quickly responded to the situation to minimize the exposure, but some students still saw things they shouldn't, according to the district, and it was reported up the chain. When I heard about it, I was more unhappy with the IT folks who can manage to block all sorts of sites, and lock down this, and make impenetrable that, according to their boasts, but couldn't block a pop-up. I argued that if anyone should be punished, it should be the head IT guy, but, as only one voice among seven on the board, I was overruled and the principal wrote up the teacher for some infraction or another - I don't recall exactly what they settled on. I don't believe it was turned over to the police or DA, though.

Good luck with the re-trial, but if their district is anything like ours, a "not guilty" verdict still won't help her get her job back. Not that she'd want to work for them, anyway...

Re:Legal Defence

[Saanvik (155780)]

Um, no, there is no evidence of shady behavior. There's evidence that the computer in question displayed adult images during the time in question, but there are many reasons, such as the pop-up ads blamed by the defense, that such images could have been displayed.

Re:Legal Defence

[billcopc (196330)]

In fact there is evidence of negligence by the school's IT staff, since they never renewed their license for virus and spyware protection. Any damn kid could have surfed any of the thousands of porn domains that spring up every day, and they probably did, which is what set the PC up for popups in the first place. Couple that with poor (read: nonexistent) local security settings and the sysadmin is every bit as guilty as this prof, which is to say: not very guilty at all.

The other thing is: ok so a bunch of teens saw some boobs on a computer screen... so what ? They're probably already checking that stuff out at home when mom & dad aren't watching. It won't make them into lesser beings. On the other hand, dragging this bening issue into court and legally abusing a teacher is one hell of a bad example to set for your kids. That's right son, when the going gets tough, shrug responsibility and sue someone!

Re:Legal Defence

[beadfulthings (975812)]

Actually there may or may not be evidence of shady behavior. What is clear is that the school's protective measures, intended to block the porn and assorted other undesirable popups, were not functioning during the interval in question. It was also brought up in the original trial that she contacted the school authorities in an attempt to get some technical support with the problem. If she'd been thinking more astutely, she might have simply shut the computer down or might even have locked it away from the students. But she did what she was supposed to do in terms of alerting the school to the problem and requesting help with it. If you regard it in another light, she got a 40 year sentence due to somebody else's poor software and tech support.

Re:Legal Defence

[mark-t (151149)]

All really nice except that she was explicitly given orders to *NOT* shut the computer off. Indeed, had she never been instructed to avoid shutting down the computer she probably would have done just that (or at least shut off the monitor, although from what I've read before she evidently did not know that the monitor power switch was separate from the actual computer power switch when asked why she didn't simply shut the monitor off). One can argue about whether or not such a computer illiterate teacher should be in an elementary school classroom in the 21st century all they want, but it's still not something a person should go to jail for. Of course, not that it matters... even though she's innocent of any real wrongdoing, this incident has probably cemented her teaching career closed forever.

Re:Legal Defence

[MMC Monster (602931)]

Not knowing that the monitor is a separate switch is not entirely unreasonable. I would not have any idea how to turn the monitor off a recent iMac without shutting the system down, and I've been exposed to computers for over 25 years.

Re:Legal Defence

[ViperAFK (960095)]

40 Years would be completely ridiculous even if it was intentional, rape and manslaughter convicts can get less time than that.

Re:Legal Defence

[Wellington Grey (942717)]

Not sure when this became fact, but in my day, a teacher was someone that (a) would teach, and (b) would not do unnecessary harm. I probably missed the memo where indoctrinating them to a particular way of life (the parent's responsibility) were offloaded to the teacher.

No kidding. I'm a teacher and let me tell you, the worst role models are the people intentionally trying to be a role model.

-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]

Re:Here's a crazy idea...

[Turn-X Alphonse (789240)]

You assume teachers know how to do this. An English teacher doesn't need to know how to play cat and mouse with Windows security, S/he needs to know how to engage kids, teach kids and the subject in question. IT skills don't come into this what so ever.

The saying goes "Jack of all trades, master of none", it's not just random chance you know.

Re:Here's a crazy idea...

[Frosty Piss (770223)]

But really, is anyone ever really "injured" by information?

"Mommy, guess what I learned at school today! I tried it on ALL the boys, and they want me to do it again!"

Re:She should lose her teaching license

[by Anonymous Coward]

> She could have simply covered the monitor. An elementary
> school classroom would have plenty of items available to allow
> that (construction paper, tape). She could have sent the kids
> to the playground or cafeteria or assembly room.

You know what's funny? You expect this woman to react appropriately in the heat of the moment. OTOH, you, who is under no pressure and has all the time in the world, failed to come up with the most effective way to prevent the images, i.e. turn off the monitor, and instead would be running around the classroom looking for construction paper and tape.

Re:The middle-American obsession...

[TheRealSlimShady (253441)]

It's quite strange isn't it - the American moral police don't seem to have any problem with showing pretty graphic violence (or even torture) but heaven forbid that some see a breast or some pubes.

Re:Analysis of her system

[silas_moeckel (234313)]

Having worked at an ISP I've seen first hand what the FBI and secret service call computer forensics it's pitiful. Best example was we got all the paperwork to send a copy of a virtual dedicated server, not a problem tar.gz on a dvd and sent it off. There computer expert could not understand that I think is the oldest method to bundle up files and compress them still used. Resending him a zip file fixed that then he had issues with unix end of line. This guy was a computer forensic examiner, I hope the terrorists never figure out how to use something other than windows. Before somebody mentions it the scope of the paperwork did not cover the whole hard drive or I would have used encase or dd.