Connecticut v. Amero

Julie Amero is a former Kelly Middle School substitute teacher who was convicted on January 5th, 2007 in Norwich, Connecticut superior court of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child.

The controversial conviction is for events that occurred on October 19, 2004 while Julie Amero was substituting for a seventh-grade language class. The teacher computer was accessed by pupils while the normal teacher, Matthew Napp was out of the room. When Julie took charge, the computer started popping up pornographic images.

Sentencing is scheduled for March 2, 2007. The felony charges for which she has been convicted carry a maximum prison sentence of 40 years.

Controversy

Amero and her supporters say the old computer lacked firewall or antispyware protections to prevent inappropriate pop-ups.

Several computer experts believe that spyware and malware programs could have hijacked the machine’s browser so that it visited pornography sites without prompting and created the computer logs that helped convict Ms. Amero.

What is extraordinary is the prosecution admitted there was no search made for spyware -- an incredible blunder akin to not checking for fingerprints at a crime scene," Alex Eckelberry, president of a Florida software company, wrote recently in the local newspaper. "When a pop-up occurs on a computer, it will get shown as a visited Web site, and no 'physical click' is necessary.

External links

• News report of verdict
• Editorial discussion
• Update and parental opinion
• Technical discussion reported in PC Magazine
• CNN Article
• NY Times
• News and Blog about the case
• Amero's support page