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Misdemeanor Plea Ends Norwich Pornography Case
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.'"
Looks as thought the Prosecution backed down 95%, which shows they really had no case. But the Prosecution still wanted a conviction on ANY charge and likely threatened to go back with all the Felony charges if this teacher did not agree. Faced with this option it's no wonder she took the smaller fall. But someone higher up the Justice chain needs to review this case as it looks as though the Prosecution used their office and FEAR as they means to get this last conviction. i.e. this looks like completely flawed use of the Justice system. The really bad people here were the school administrators, IMHO, who did not keep up-to-date which would have prevented the porn pop=ups. Why is the Prosecutors office ignoring the bigger crime and going after one teacher? That's insane and needs review IMHO. Meantime this teacher now has a criminal mrecord and a "prior" which will follow her for the rest of her life. Any job interview will mean she will have to detail the offense and her "arrest record".
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage