Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Good news! Next week your school district is going to vote on whether they should hire more IT staff so they can make their own controlled internet. All it will take is a small increase to your property taxes.
Get real. Using the internet is a valuable skill that children in school should learn, but creating a completely controlled environment will be too expensive. The best we can reasonably hope for is a public internet connection and a horribly configured/maintained proxy. We're just going to have to deal with the occasional child being accidentally exposed to material that his/her parents find objectionable. But really, is anyone ever really "injured" by information?
"Most people prefer higher quality porn!"
Here are some links to stories we did:
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
I'd have to argue against even losing her teaching credentials. Certainly a reprimand is in order, but the catalyst to the situation was not only beyond her control, it was within the control of the school administration. She was under orders not to turn the computer off under any circumstance. She reported the situation (poorly, but she did report it).
Plenty of young and old teachers alike are not computer savvy.
It's very easy to imagine a person who would not know what to do in this situation. How many times during your scholastic career did a teacher or school administrator make a decision that was contrary to logic, not in the best interest of students, or altogether dumb.
I found naked pictures in National Geographic in third grade. Eventually those issues were removed from the classroom. I can't imagine that my teacher was even reprimanded. The only real difference is that those pictures weren't designed to be tittilating. They still got into the classroom under the guise of an educational tool, and my teacher didn't immediately remove the issues when she discovered what we had been seeing. I'm willing to bet that my third grade class was not the only one in the country to go through this, and I'm also willing to bet that there are National Geographic issues in classrooms today with pictures of naked women inside them.
I had the same impression of this "expert" as you - but there are a limited number of people who actually have reviewed the system. His analysis of user activity is questionable and there were a couple of other things in there - like stating google initialized pop-ups.
However - he did find non-school related surfing, spyware, and adware. Whether this spyware was actually the cause of this or whether it happened to just be a component of a visited website isn't really clear either.
It's disturbing that the teachers unions did not come to her defense
As a long-time union member, I can assure you that the image of the union (or gains made via concessions by management) almost always trumps the protectionism provided its members. I have personally been "sold down the river" when it became clear that the union stood more to gain from honoring management's wishes that I would just go away rather than defending me (ironic, since I was a union rep with the singular goal of defending my bargaining unit members). I have seen many others treated similarly over the years.
BTW, this really isn't a dig for or against unions; it's just something you accept when you get involved with a union.
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I absolutely agree. I have one son who is a Junior and another that will be a Freshman next year... and the school would be better off if they dragged out and burned every computer they own. For every ounce of extra benefit the computers give them, it gives them a pound of distraction and expense. And I'm skeptical about that ounce of benefit.
"Hey Dad, my friend got a quake server running during English class." "Hey Dad, know any techniques for getting around websense? They're blocking Google Images." "Hey Dad, I got an Imageshack account, 'cause all my friends have one." AAAARRRGH
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.
No sir I dont like it.
"Yeah, but during the Spanish Inquisition she would have been burned at the stake for showing porn to her students! 40 years isn't that bad at all!"
... we're not sending people to places like Alcatraz anymore and some states are still executing people. It's hard to get any worse than condemning people to death (unless it's death by torture).
Well, that wasn't the logic I was trying to apply at all. I completely agree that 40 years is ridiculously excessive and comparing today's actions to those 600 years ago as a way of making the present not look so bad is counter productive to making positive changes in the present.
But even in the last 100 years
So while yes, 40 years is downright shockingly excessive for the crime and yes I agree that there have been some rather striking indications of a shift in the last 25 - 30 years in the direction of "cracking down", I think in the greater scheme of things we have done far more good than harm. Of course things can always get better and I will continue to oppose any laws that I deem unfair or downright idiotic.
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.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
The fact that this case is being prosecuted just sickens me. This prosecutor needs to stand behind the Duke lacrosse prosecutor in the line to get his license revoked.
There is exactly one option that will, at this point, make me say "justice served." That is complete and immediate dismissal of all charges and disbarment of the prosecutor who pursued this in the first place.
If this does go to trial, my defense strategy would be this: Bring one expert witness after another to the stand to testify that this could happen on a poorly patched and insecure system regardless of what this woman may have done. Eventually the prosecution will have to stipulate that fact to which one must then say "So, why are we here?"
This just makes me amazingly angry.
One more note... don't try to wiggle out of jury duty, folks. That may be your chance to be the voice or reason and to see justice done. It may also be an opportunity to exercise your right of Jury Nullification.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
An excellent point and I agree with it. Here's a story of what has happened within the past week here. (Wife and I are both geeks. Daughter is one in progress. SWEET !!!)
We have a 12 year old daughter. She has full access to the internet and still has. But we check out the sites she goes to and check her email twice a day as well as her myspace account every day. We have her password. That was a requirement for her to become a member. The other day my wife discovered that her myspace page AND email address had been hijacked. We had myspace delete her account, our ISP kill her email addy. Our daughter had seen both the emails she was getting as well as her myspace account before we had caught on. Both were XXX rated by this time.
We had a CALM heart to heart talk with her about what had happened. We were calm, cool and collected, all three of us. We explained what had happened and how/why. The three of us also had a frank talk about the content of what she had seen and read. Hentai, oral sex, anal sex, etc. Whatever the content was we discussed it. I feel we are RESPONSIBLE parents. We COMMUNICATE with our daughter. It is OUR responsibility to educate her in the way of life. It is NO OTHERS responsibility. We have always strived to do this with her.
So... why wasn't the teacher aquited? She needs to be. But it seems the powers that be always want to shrug off their responsibility and put it on others.
BS I say.
Chuck
I'm still not sure why the teacher is being blamed. I would assume that most K-12 schools would be using some kind of proxy server to limit access to 'questionable' content. From talking to some network admins in the past who work for a local school district, they treat the students as hostile users and try to limit the access as much as possible.
Classroom puter, I would assume wasn't something the teacher lugged back and forth from home....did the substitute teacher circumvent the network? how was she able to surf pr0n in the first place?
I'd consider even 4 minutes at a trial to be too excessive for this. Who in their right mind thought this was something that should even be prosecuted?
The moral of the story: never ever do anything of any kind anywhere near children that are not yours. And, walk on eggshells around your own kids. Never become a teacher for people under 18 because you can end up in jail for doing nothing wrong. Never work at a day care center. Never talk to kids on the street even to ask them the time. You are putting your freedom in another person's hands when doing so.
This sort of prosecution is the exact opposite of helping children. By making teaching a risky job, you're going to drive even more people away from the profession. No sane person would ever become a teacher to kids. The money is low. The aggravation is high. The legal risk is high. You have to really love being around kids to work under those conditions. Heck, one day maybe the only people who would willingly be teachers are pedophiles who can't help themselves. It's the catholic priest principle. (priests aren't allowed to have sex, so only sexually repressed people become priests, and sexually repressed people will sometimes lose control in the worst possible way)
The more we try to protect the children, the worse we make the world for those children.
Cow Cube
She did fight it. She did let them know that the pop-up pictures just kept coming. She did indicate she tried to shield the children once she saw what was happening. Evidence was suppressed that would have disclosed the amount and nature of malware on her system. That's why this was tossed back by the higher court.
Unfortunately, if you're technically literate, you might find it difficult to find a judge who understands the technology, even moreso a full jury of your peers. If you've ever worked a help desk, just imagine a random sampling of 10 of your users sitting on a jury. Do you think they'll be able to make head or tails of the technical arguments, even with lots of pictures and mono-syllabic definitions?
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
When I was in my 20's I went to a lot of local elementary schools and gave talks on medieval history and demonstrations of how to make medieval armor. In college I worked with a statewide physics education program where we built demonstrators of basic physics principles and took them to many local elementary and junior high schools. I used to work with church youth groups. Then, over a period of two years, two of my friends were convicted to lifetime sentences in federal prisons for child-related crimes that I'm 95% sure and 75% sure, respectively, they didn't actually do.
From that time on, I've made very sure to not be alone with children under any circumstances.
It's too bad, because I really enjoyed teaching. It was rewarding and I got a lot of kids interested in things they would've probably never encountered. But that's not worth the risk of spending the rest of my life in federal prison.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.