Judicial miscarriage averted (mostly)

Remember the Julie Amero case? In brief, she was a victim of both her own computer illiteracy and the witch hunting mentality (see here and here for background). The good news is that common sense has, if not prevailed, at least greatly moderated the situation:

Julie Amero is free at last.

If this were the 1970s, Bob Dylan might have written a song about her. Today it's geeks who came to her rescue.

Amero's "crime": In October 2004, the substitute teacher from Norwich, Conn., was surfing the Net on a computer inside a middle school classroom when porn ads began popping up all over the screen. She didn't turn the computer off, because school officials expressly told her not to. Someone reported the incident, and Amero was charged with four counts of endangering minors. In January 2007, a jury convicted Amero of surfing XXX sites in the classroom.

Amero was looking at 40 years in the slammer when geeks around the country — most notably Sunbelt Software CEO Alex Eckelberry — read of her verdict and immediately recognized the telltale signs of a spyware infection. They went to work on Amero's behalf, urging the judge for a retrial (which was granted in June 2007).

As I predicted in the earlier posts, even though the worst hasn't happened (the prison time), Amero's life is still shattered:

Amero isn't totally exonerated. She agreed to plead guilty to "disorderly conduct" (a misdemeanor), pay US$100, and have her teaching credentials revoked. The state still refuses to acknowledge it was mistaken. Lord only knows if the school ever cleaned up its computers.

Somebody needs to revoke the credentials of Norwich school administrators and prosecutors — or at least make them stay after school and learn something about the machines they put inside their classrooms.

The larger, uglier verdict in this case is the terminal cluelessness of everyone involved — from administrators who allowed spyware-infested computers into schools, to the DA's office, to the "expert witness" who wasn't actually an expert, to the first judge who refused to let the defense present forensic evidence on Amero's behalf, to the jury, and finally to Amero herself. All of them get an F in 21st-century survival skills.

So, no jail time, but a trivial fine, a criminal record, and no possibility of her ever being allowed to teach again. But it was all for the children, so it must be okay, right?