State v Amero - A Miscarriage of Justice?

State V. Amero

A Miscarriage of Justice

Juor Speaks: Teacher in Porn Case

This entry was posted on 2/15/2007 4:21 PM and is filed under Other Voices,Jury,Legal.

Steve Bass' column in PcWorld.com published today featuring an authenticated correspondence he received from one of the jurors in the trial.

"Finally she was pronounced guilty because she made no effort to hide or stop the porno, not just because she loaded the porno onto the machine. Going to the history pages it was obvious that the paged were clicked on they were not the result of pop-ups."
--ConnYankee1951 (juror)

Now, how would you feel, sitting at the defense table, knowing he was one of your jurors? Read the full column here and comment below

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2/18/2007 8:15 PM MarkK wrote:
Sample letter:

We need help in getting Connecticut State Attorney David Smith disbarred for his false statements to the press and jury. Please send this letter:

Connecticut State Bar
30 Bank Street
PO Box 350
New Britain CT 06050-0350
Phone: (860) 223-4400
Fax: (860) 223-4488

Dear sir/madam,

I request you launch an immediate investigation into the actions of State’s Attorney David Smith as per the case of Julie Amero. He has made numerous false statements to the press, the jury, and the judge in this case. Such misconduct is wrong and needs to be investigated by your office.

In one such false statement, State’s Attorney, David Smith reportedly told the jury, "You have to physically click on it to get to those sites," when referring to the web sites that showed up on Ms. Amero’s computer. Other times he went further, and suggested not only that Amero clicked on the web site links (URLs), but that she physically typed them in.

The CEO of the maker of the forensic software that Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury used to examine Julie Amero’s computer stated that, while the software can find all sorts of files and images, including deleted images or images in unallocated disk space, by keyword or by filetype, [it] does not determine the cause of those files being on the computer (whether caused by malware, intrusion, or direct and willful use), and that it is not the function of [the software] to make that determination." In other words, the forensic evaluation of Ms. Amero's computer did not show what , David Smith and Mr. Lounsbury claimed.

Nevertheless, both the detective (Mark Lounsbury) and the prosecutor (David Smith) were unequivocal in their statements to the press and the jury that the forensic evidence demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the substitute teacher deliberately “typed in” the porn sites. Smith and Loundsbury knew these statements were false, yet they made them anyway.

Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury has gone further, though. He reportedly also said that he can differentiate between what is and what is not a pop-up based on the source codes [sic]. There is no factual basis for this claim.

Such statements are all false, and are not backed up by the evidence. To make such an assertion to win a case is wrong, it is prosecutorial misconduct, and is therefore cause for disbarment.

In addition we will be petitioning the U.S. Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation into the actions of the State’s Attorney, David Smith, and Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury in this matter.
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4/10/2007 1:30 AM DIon Homes wrote:
If Amero were male, there would be no outcry. There cannot exit 2 standrds for American justice
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1. 4/10/2007 10:11 AM editor wrote:
  >If Amero were male, there would be no outcry...
  
  You're absolutely right. If it was a male found guilty, I probably wouldn't have taken a second look at the case. But a pregnant female teacher, looking at porn in front of a classroom full of students, c'mon.
  
  I still have (had?) some degree of faith in our Criminal Justice system and would not believe that they would blindly attempt to send someone to jail just because they could. I also believed that they would speak to technical experts about this issue, but they didn't.
  
  But, on the other hand, if it was a male teacher, and I saw the following quote, I might have taken some action.
  
  "You have to physically click on it to get to those sites," Smith said. "I think the evidence is overwhelming that she did intend to access those Web sites."
  
  Prosecuting Attorney David Smith in the January 6th Norwich Bulletin. It was this line of horse-shit that prompted me to look into the case.
  
  Also, complaining about two standards for American justice does not entitle one to do nothing when obvious injustice occurs. And addressing the Amero case will lead to greater protections for male teachers and others who find themselves in similar situations. A much higher standard of computer forensics is called for in a case like this. Unsecured computers can and will download and cache content that the user doesn't control, doesn't see or doesn't intend to keep.
  
  Thanks for visiting the site and reading up on the case.
  
  The Editor
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4/11/2007 3:11 PM Ian Woolger wrote:
Good luck to Julie in her case, from over here in the UK. I cannot beleive a prosecution against a teacher, based on such evidence could even be contemplated. Having used computers since the dawn of the internet, I have sufferred "pop ups", "rogue diallers" and all manner of symptoms. These have directed me to many sites upon which i have never wished to visit or view. My dial up number has been changed and my homepage hijacked, all of these whilst running what i consedered to be a reasonable level of security. Only last week, a good friend showed me the lack of security on a friends wireless network, by surfing the internet from outside his house and then accesing his computer and creating and removing files. Surely no prosecutor in an educated and democratic country can sustain such a case against someone so blatantly innocent. In my opinion, the education authority should be the ones in the dock, for exposing the teacher to undu risk, because of a lack of security on its systems. let us hope that she is found not guilty and the state is forced to compensate her and re evaluate its security protocols to protect others!

Ian Woolger (Devon, England)
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9/2/2007 4:27 PM Jeff wrote:
This whole thing is unbelievable.

I am continually astonished when I see just how stupid people can be. However just for the sake of argument, despite the fact that the evidence proves her innocent beyond a reasonable doubt, let's assume that she's guilty.

Let's see...

The crime:
She allowed minors to see porn. Are they scarred for life? How much pain were they under during the episode? Who was hurt by this and what is the extent of the pain?

The punishment:
40 years in prison. Imagine you are at a party you don't want to be at, or some social function you don't like and you want to leave. Now imagine you take away anything pleasant you could look at or the possibility of talking to anyone. The thought of spending an hour like that is one of the most negative things I can think of. Now increase the trapped feeling. An hour feels like a week. There is absolutely no way you are getting out of there no matter what you do. Then do that 320,000 times in a row.

punishment == crime?

People should really understand the consequences of what they do. Especially prosecutors.
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