Teacher granted new trial in porn case

A substitute teacher was sentenced to 40 years in prison for allegedly exposing her students to porn sites on the classroom computer. There's a real question as to whether this display was intentional, or due to pop-up windows running wild.

Judge Hillary Strackbein said 40-year-old Julie Amero was entitled to a new trial "because a witness the state presented as a computer expert, a Norwich police detective, provided 'erroneous' testimony about the classroom computer," according to the Hartford Courant.

"This is a case of a little bit of knowledge being too much," Amero's attorney, William Dow III told Security Fix. "The state's witness was not qualified to offer the opinions he did and further examination by the state showed that the witness was just wrong. Thankfully, the judge understood that."

Critics of the state's handling of the investigation and subsequent trial point to injustices that were revealed after Amero had been convicted. For example, the school district's IT director said after her conviction that the incident likely could have been prevented if the school had renewed its Web site content filtering software. It was outdated at the time of Amero's alleged porn surfing.

The defense's key witness, a forensics expert who had examined the PC Amero was using in the classroom, was barred from presenting his technical evidence during the trial. There also was the prosecution's admission that it had failed to conduct any scan of the computer's hard drive with anti-spyware software.

When I wrote about Amero's conviction in January, an anonymous commenter left this message on the blog: "I'm surprised at the grammar of all these comments. It's surprisingly good." Initially, I chuckled but otherwise dismissed that comment, until I began to hear via e-mail from some of the people who'd been carrying on a rather anxious conversation in the comments section of that blog post. It turns out that many of the most vocal were teachers or spouses of educators.

LeBaron said that under the circumstances, it would not be unreasonable for teachers in Connecticut to just turn off their computers, refuse to use them, and leave them off until they get proper training.

State Rep. Malone echoed that sentiment, adding that he, too, is worried about the long-term effects of the case.

"I envision some teacher is going to walk into their classroom and say, 'Nope, not me. Open your books and turn off the computers. These are dangerous things, and I'm not losing my career over it.'"

The comments on this post are also interesting. Some of the topics discussed include:

• Forty years for exposing kids to porn for a few minutes? In some states, you'd have to kill three people, rob a bank, and spit on twelves sidewalks to do that kind of time.
• The nature of what triggers pop-ups. Whose surfing caused the tornado of pop-ups?
• The qualifications of the "expert witness". Did he blow it, and if so, how badly?
• Who wants to be a teacher after this?

Brian also refers interested parties to the transcripts of the case.

And, as a parting shot, I note this:

Willard said schools place too much faith in Web site filtering software, which can do little to block adult-themed pop-ups generated by invasive adware and spyware programs.

'There is this misperception that filtering software is a totally effective solution that gives schools a false sense of security,' Willard said.

This is yet another example of how bad security is worse than no security at all. If you think you're protected, you tend to quit taking even the most elementary precautions.