TheAgitator.com
Julie Amero’s Denoument
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008Amero is the 40-year-old Connecticut substitute teacher convicted in January 2007 of four felony “corrupting a minor” charges when the computer she was using in front of her middle school class began opening a loop of pornographic pop-up windows. She faced a possible 40-year sentence. I wrote a short piece about her in the May 2007 issue of reason:
As she tried to close the ads, the loops only intensified. She says some sort of adware or malicious software on her computer caused the pop-up ads to appear; such infections were indeed found on the computer later, including the Web address of a seemingly innocuous hairdressing site that spun off the loop of porn ads that Amero described in her defense. The school had filtering software on all of its computers but had let the software licenses expire, rendering the filters useless. The prosecution later conceded that Amero’s computer was never even tested for malware.
The state’s expert witness, a computer crimes investigator with the Norwich Police Department, testified that because the URLs for the offending sites were “highlighted,” Amero must have deliberately clicked on them. Yet none of the major Web browsers requires a mouse click to highlight a link; any address that has been loaded by the browser, which happens whenever a pop-up window opens, will show up as “visited.”
When Amero’s case hit the Internet early last year, tech experts across the country quickly recognized what had happened, and dozens volunteered to aid in her defense. A state judge granted her a new trial in June of last year after he was presented with evidence from actual experts (as opposed to the Norwich Police Department’s badly misinformed computer crimes investigator) that the computer had been infected. Yet the state’s prosecutors stuck to their guns.
Finally last week, the state of Connecticut dropped the four felony counts against Amero. But her vindication isn’t quite complete. As part of the plea, Amero still had to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, pay a $100 fine, and will have to forgo her teaching license in Connecticut. She has also been hospitalized from stress and a heart condition brought on by the whole ordeal. Incredibly, some public officials in Connecticut still insist she’s guilty of knowingly corrupting minors with porn. Here’s Hartord Courant columnist Rick Green:
New London County State’s Attorney Michael Regan told me late Friday the state remained convinced Amero was guilty and was prepared to again go to trial.
“I have no regrets. Things took a course that was unplanned. Unfortunately the computer wasn’t examined properly by the Norwich police,” Regan said.
“For some reason this case caught the media’s attention,” Regan said.
Another state’s prosecutor, David Smith, apparently also said at the hearing that, “the State felt that they had enough of a case, but that due to Julie’s declining health, that he and William Dow had agreed to a lesser charge.” How generous of them.
This is one of the most mind-bogglingly idiot things I’ve read in a good long time.
Balko, while I was up after a cup of coffee my young son wandered into the room and glanced at your webpage and its admittance of the existence of pornography. Expect the SWAT team, deviant.
Just more proof of the ‘convict someone for something’ mentality that apparently all prosecutors have. Justice? Bah. It’s all about the convictions. Truth? That just gets in the way of statistics. Morality? They have none.
It’s all about putting someone away. Doesn’t have to be the right person, just has to be someone to pin it on.
Once the state decides to prosecute, a person is pretty much fucked, because they never back off.
As an aside, every time I read about cases like this one, I wonder “Whatever happened to the concept of intent being necessary for a crime to have occurred?”.
New London, Connecticut, huh? Gee, that sounds familiar for some reason…
…..and that is how one gets 44% scores on civic tests……
Good gracious, has not one person in the DA’s office ever had that happen to them? Sheesh.
I remember this case. Poor woman! As soon as I heard about the multiple porn windows opening, I recognized the situation right away. You can’t close them fast enough–you pretty much just have to reset the machine.
I’m sure the prosecutors were quickly told about the problem, but they rarely back off once the legal process is in motion. They spend their entire lives, day in and day out, trying their level best to hurt other people. It may be a necessary role, but that kind of experience can make all but the most saintly person pitiless and cruel–and we see the results in the heartless “justice” they apply to anyone who crosses their path.
Sad to say, but the lawyers and prosecutors have taken control of our country, and we’re unlikely to ever get it back from them. Stop being shocked by the vile injustices you read about every day, and just recognize that prosecutors are often monsters, worse than muggers and burglars, and pray to God you never cross their path. It is just the way it is, these days.
Can we just change the name from the Justice System to the Conviction System. At least then people will know what to expect.
This is just one more way, the state is showing us that it maybe dangerous to your freedom, to have a job that involves kids. And people wonder why there aren’t enough qualified teachers.
On the one hand, it is appalling that the State justice system is so ignorant of day-to-day life with computers that they view this prosecution as reasonable.
On the other, does one really WANT government to be computer adept? They are dangerous enough NOW.
I used to volunteer as an instructor in ham radio. You know: help youngsters learn 5 words per minute of radiotelegraph, and some simple radio theory and regulation.
That all came to a screeching halt when one of my fellow instructors was accused of a lewd act. His lewd act was using the same communal urinal at a facility where we were teaching classes. This was during a class break. NONE of the kids reported him; it was a vindictive adult.
The man was exonerated, but it put quite a dent in his reputation. This guy was married, had three kids, etc. He had all the usual “good” things going for him (the right religion, marital status, etc).
Here I was, well into adulthood but never married and no kids. A oddball appearance (big and bearish with a big beard). Can you imagine what some imaginative mother could make of that set of “facts”?
The ONLY way I would ever return to mentoring or teaching youngsters is a guarantee that there would be a minimum of two other TRUSTED adults present, and to never be out of sight of one or both.
Kinda scary. Is it safe to use computers in the presence of children? You never know when something like this could happen.
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
Every frakkin’ day I am forced to re-image some poor sod’s laptop because they clicked on the wrong thing and infected themselves, and the tools we have lag behind the clever bastards that dream this shit up. (This is also why users should NOT have Admin rights on their machines!)
I’ve told co-workers I’d like to lock said clever bastards in a room full of baseball-bat-armed techs who have to deal with their crap day in and day out, and see how long they last.
Sooner or later, no matter how savvy you are, the bug gets in. Damn Windoze is made that way. And anyone who makes their bread-and-butter in the IT field knows the odds favor the malicious code writers if you’re using that platform. I don’t like litigation, but that woman should counter-sue.
Good gracious, has not one person in the DA’s office ever had that happen to them? Sheesh.
I’m sure they follow the standard law enforcement rule, “When we do it, it’s a mistake.”
Since the charge is of corrupting a minor, shouldn’t they have to prove that a minor was actually corrupted here? At this point, how many high school students can there be who have not seen porn?
Where is Jim Bell when you need him?
/kidding
“Who is Jim Bell?”
You forgot to close your href tag, perlhaqr.
/rand
“Since the charge is of corrupting a minor, shouldn’t they have to prove that a minor was actually corrupted here? At this point, how many high school students can there be who have not seen porn?”
Maybe that’s why it was only 4 counts instead of 1 per student.
On a serious note though, this is highly distressing. I haven’t seen cascading pop-ups like that since the earliest days of my Internet usage, but I definitely remember it.
I speak to teachers, administrators and parents about the True dangers of internet porn; I often bring up this poor teacher who obviously got rail-roaded! I instruct parents to teach their kids how to turn off the monitor!!!! a quick fix to the mouse-trap porn cyclone!
A note to Davidst… those cascading pop-ups are still out there.
Mr. M – My Internet Doorman – The First Fully Managed Internet Filtering Service – Block Porn.
Links:
http://www.myinternetdoorman.org
http://www.myinternetdoorman.com