24 November 2008

Julie Amero, Innocent, But Prosecutors Still Extort a Guilty Plea

You may remember the story.

She was substitute teaching, and because the sysop at her school turned off the spyware protections, her computer was innundated with sexually oriented popups.

They charged her with providing pornography to minors, and she faced up to 40 years in jail.

She lost a baby, and after a judge threw out the conviction:
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."
The "false information" was the prosecution presenting a detective with a few hours of computer training as a forensic expert.

But the prosecutors have continued to pursue her, and finally, they managed to Well, coerce a guilty plea for disturbing the peace, and force her to give up her teaching license.

I'm not sure as to whether this is just hubris, or fear of a lawsuit, but it should be against the law....In fact, it may be, depending on how you read the law.

They took her baby, her career, and her health, she has been in and out of hospital since this all started, and they kept going after her, because they were unwilling to do the right thing.

If only she played Lacrosse, perhaps the DA's license to practice law would be pulled.

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