She gets 40 years because of "risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child.".

In another news, 35% of 13 y/o CANT COUNT the number of times they watched p0rn.

http://digg.com/tech_news/35_of_13_yr_old_boys_can_t_count_of_porno...

:roll eyes:

Wow, that is simply ridiculous. Why the hell was the Teacher blamed? If anyone should be blamed, it should be Microsoft. And if not Microsoft, the software filter that the school was using, or hell, the school's Tech Guy for failing to provide proper filtering.

What exactly is to stop some kid from visiting: www.ilikeboobies.com? How can the teacher be blamed for anything other than being too stupid to turn off the monitor or pull out the plug?

Those damned pampered American teachers. You know what they need? More accountability!

Seriously, though. This is just one more reason that I don't envy the position our teachers are put in. Their job is incredibly stressful, pays for shiat (unless you're a district administrator), involves very little respect from anyone, they're exposed to just crippling amounts of liability on an almost daily basis, and their facilities and supplies are mostly (and sometimes intentionally) underfunded.

Then they take the blame for everything from little Cody's head lice to little Dakota's learning disability to Skyler's drug problems to, according to Neal Boortz and other high-profile ideologues of his ilk, being "more dangerous than Al Qaeda" to America because of their evil, evil "liberal" leanings that are "destroying generations of Americans".

And THEN, on top of that, they're prevented from using even a tiny scrap of creativity in the classroom because of the government's insistence on increased federal and state control over the curriculum in the name of "no child left behind", and the failures of top-heavy bureaucracy vis a vis comparatively low testing scores are dropped in their laps over and over and over again by the government and by the media.

Teachers are the nation's whipping boys, and they're tied to the whipping post.

/not a teacher

Its time to stop dodging jury duty, and its time to go after prosecutors who suck at their job.

Reference List

For those of you who have been asking for a listing of references to this case, I have compiled a short listing for you.

Kelly Middle School
Principal Scott Fain
860-823-4211

Superintendent Norwich Public Schools - Pam Aubin
pwaubin@norwicpublicschools.org
Note: This address is no longer valid

Prosecutor
SMITH, David J. Criminal Justice, Division Of
(860) 889-5284 david.smith@po.state.ct.us

Hillary B. Strackbein Superior Court Judge JD and GA Matters
Superior Court G.A. 10112 Broad StreetNew London, CT 06320
Tel (860) 443-8343; Fax (860) 437-1168

Superior CourtJudicial District & G.A.
211 Courthouse SquareNorwich, CT 06360
Tel (860) 886-0144; Fax (860) 823-1019

Detective Mark Lounsbury Norwich Police
Tel: (860) 886-5561 ext 153 Fax: (860) 886-4552

CT State governor M. Jodi Rell
Mailing Address
Governor M. Jodi Rell
Executive Office of the Governor
State Capitol 210 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, Connecticut 06106
Telephone Greater Hartford Area:
860-566-4840
Toll Free: 800-406-1527
TDD: 860-524-7397
E-Mail
Governor.Rell@po.state.ct.us

Joseph Courtney United States Representative
Washington D.C. Office
215 Cannon House Office BuildingWashington, DC 20515
Phone:(202) 225-2076Fax:(202) 225-4977
District Office
2 Courthouse Square, 5th FloorNorwich, CT 06360
Phone:(860) 886-0139Fax:(860) 886-2974

Senator Edith Praque
E-mail:
Prague@senatedems.ct.gov
Phone:
1-800-842-1420
Address:
Legislative Office BuildingRoom
3800Hartford, CT 06106-1591

State Representative
Jack Malone Deputy Majority Whip
Serving the 47th Assembly DistrictCanterbury, Norwich, Scotland & Sprague
At the Capitol:Legislative Office Building,
Room 4013Hartford, CT 06106-1591
(860) 240-85851-800-842-8267
Jack.Malone@cga.ct.gov

(Disclaimer: I work in IT in a public school environment)

I think the woman was a scapegoat, pure and simple. If this was a public school, they are subject to CIPA (Child Internet Protection Act) laws if they receive eRate funding from the feds, (which is likely) which states that an internet filtering solution MUST be in place. The principal's statement from the case said that through oversight, that subscription expired a month before the incident occurred. I think they're scrambling to blame someone other than themselves so they don't lose eRate funding.

I'd not necessarily blame the sysadmin for that school --if a school gives IT no budget to work with, it can cripple what they are capable of. The first article I read about this incident said that computers were running Windows 98 and IE 5. Sure sounds like a district that's not budgeting for IT (though it could be an IT issue as well, not enough information). Either way, the school ought to lose eRate funding if they're getting it, and someone in the school's administration should be held responsible for this. Hopefully someone will bring this to the federal government's attention.

It's clear that the woman's defense attorney fell down on the job. It also seems pretty clear that we have a case of overzealous law-enforcement and prosecution. I think her case can be overturned on appeal, but it never should have gotten this far. I'd recommend looking up the prosecutor's info and giving him a polite, well-reasoned call, or whoever is his supervisor, and if you live in that area, make it clear how you feel about this and about how it will affect your vote for any elected officials in a supervisory position over this prosecutor.

Public schools are a sanity free zone, exactly like everything else the government is strongly involved with.

One private individual can't do anything about that - but one private individual can not set foot on school grounds, not take a job with them, and not send your kids there.

typical america

its perfectly ok for kids to see bloody murder, mass genocide, gang violence, fights with weapons, and people hacking each other up with swords; but show a pair of tits and all the parents start having heart attacks

i would definately file an appeal and sue the school if i was her, as this is blatantly NOT justice as there was no intent and the "criminal" here was misled via malware using computers that the school was responsible for (school computers mean the school should have had a firewall, updated browsers, anti-malware software [NOT norton or mccrappy, REAL anti-malware like avast or kaspersky and spybot SD], and regular maintainence)

Public schools….suck!!!
Teachers get paid nothing. The cheat to get past “no kid left behind” and the special interest wrapped around giving more money to the school board/administrators and less money to the broken down schools and low paid teachers is just a huge political scam.
If I were here I would get a super good lawyer and blame the school…school district…and super attendant of school in her area (who probably makes 150K a year or more) for not having a proxy server setup so that NO COMPUTER in the school could have ever gotten to those sites.

Funny how that is the norm for corporate America….but not for our kids. The kids can surf porn at a public school but their parents can’t while at work?????

School vouchers and down with public schools. Make the schools and teachers compete for you voucher money.

dumb jury.
dumb people.

i hope i never have to face one in court.

because only the dumbest americans can't come up with an excuse to skip out on jury duty. And you don't want your fate in the hands of retards.

I'm just not surprised.

For the last 10 years I've been thinking "America's legal system's gonna fall over anytime now. It's too STUPID to keep going the way it is".

Yet, I'm still waiting after 10 years.
Waiting, and laughing.

Jurors are instructed to evaluate the case based upon the evidences presented in court, and since the defense failed to provide adequate defense , the juror is left with no other choice but to conclude that the teacher deliberately visited those sites as the prosecution's expert testified. I don't know why this makes the juror in question an ass, especially when there are plenty of jurors on the case and they all have to agree on a guilty verdict and convince each other of it.

I tried looking for the ruling itself, but could not find any, but I guess that's because it's a jury and not just judge judy. The little I could read online about the case are mostly repeats of each other, with little detailed information nor enough context to allow me to form any actual opinion short of what the author wants me to have. This is why we have the courts in the first place, this is why we need to hear BOTH side of the story. If a technically inept substitute teacher wants people to cut her some slack, then perhaps we should do the same to a technically inept court.

On the other hand, back in Grade 10 we had a substitute teacher for music class. He, after a tiny bit of convincing, agreed to allow us to watch Saving Private Ryan. Two of the people in my class laughed the whole way through, especially at the dead cows, and evidently this severely irritated one of the girls in my class and the next day it was reported to the principal. We were in trouble for wanting to watch the movie, but the sub was in bigger trouble for allowing us to watch it. Never knew what happened to him, but I would imagine his career in teaching was short lived.

OMFG! That's Justice for you. The legal system is downright corrupt sometimes, and parental intolerance of porn is ridiculous (hell, most of them prob are addicted to it themselves in the US!) I wouldn't be surprised if the 'kids' knew exactly what they were doing. What we need are vigilantes, not a bunch of incompetent 'law' enforcers.

Who should be guilty? I say a gross miscarriage of justice is present here, and perpetrated by none other than the legal system itself. Launch a civil and criminal lawsuit and convict the STUPID jury, the IGNORANT school, the HYPOCRITICAL parents, the GUILTY children, and the UNJUST legal system for LIFE.

What if someone at the school despised the supposed perp? What if someone made a porn site or knew of one that installed a trojan and caused the relentless pop-ups? What if the accused was SET UP?

Why is it so hard for some people to realize there are people in this world that will, and do, set up traps for other people? It doesn't necessarily have to be a big conspiracy, but only one or two people to set somebody up. For adults 21+ not to realize this as a persistent possibility is terribly naive.

This whole farce should be revisted on the Jerry Springer show.

"PORN. COURTS. AMERICAN RETARDS ON THE JURY. TODAY ON SPRINGER..."

incredible!

I have to wonder how long it will be before the governor pardons her.

What a travesty.

I really hope she gets a speedy appeal, with a judge and jury that actually have a clue.

My opinion is that her lawyer sucked, the judge was a total moron, and the prosecutor is a slimey politician.

Poor lady. If she would have just had sex with one of her students she wouldn't be in as much trouble right now! :(

WTF?? Can this get more ridiculous? What has the world come to?

This is just disgusting. What a F'd up country the states is. Its not getting any better either.

You people with brains should really do something. Hell, even people with 1/10th a brain are geniuses compared to the people who run the country.

Jesus...

OK, the adjectives are hot swapable! :)

There's an easy solution for the future: let's make schools upgrade to Windows Vista, ah ah

Or, even better, let's fire Bush and his philosophy of allowing extreme violent shows to kids but not a pair of tits. Ops, I forgot, Bush earns money for selling weapons...

She was made an example of plain and simple. She was, in all likelihood, innocent. I don't see how anyone can prove she had the junk on it, and that it wasn't a janitor late night, or a kid when no one was looking. Isn't the burden of proof even a factor anymore? What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Ignorance of the law is no defense!

But what do you do if the law is ignorant?

The way I see it, there are two big questions, here:

1. Why did the school district decide to take such a drastic action rather than standing up for the teacher?

2. "If there is an appeal and the defense is allowed to show the entire results of the forensic examination in front of [reasonable] people, including a [reasonable] judge and prosecutor, Julie Amero will walk out the court room as a free person."

Why didn't this happen? I edited the quote because I really don't think it would have taken an especially "computer literate" person to understand the fundamental facts of the case, as described. I think most people these days know what a "computer virus" is and know that a computer can be infected by them when on the internet. That's really the extent of the knowledge needed, here.

How and why was the evidence obviously suppressed?

America. **sigh** Puritans

Edit. Meant as reply.