You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me

This is the first I have read about this case - fortunately, at the moment the news is good. A Connecticut judge has set aside a guilty verdict in the case of a substitute teacher. She was convicted of four felony counts of  "risk of injury to a minor". What happened, you ask? It would appear that students in her classroom were exposed to pornographic images on a classroom computer.

Because the computer was infected with a malicious javascript.

Julie Amero had been convicted of four felony counts of "risk of injury to a minor," but on Friday, the Connecticut superior court judge in charge of her sentencing set aside a guilty verdict in the case.

The ruling by Judge Hillary Strackbein grants Amero a new trial, but whether that will actually happen was unclear Friday. In an interview, Assistant State Attorney David Smith said he had taken "no position" on the defense's motion that triggered the judge's decision to set aside the guilty verdict. Smith declined to comment further on the case because it is still pending.

Amero, formerly a substitute teacher at Kelly Middle School in Norwich, Connecticut, was charged after an Oct. 19, 2004 incident during which a classroom computer exposed Amero's seventh graders to pornographic images. She was facing up to 40 years in prison after her Jan. 5 conviction.

The prosecution had charged that Amero had endangered her students by accessing pornographic images and the case had become a cause celebre in the antispyware community, which has portrayed her as an innocent victim of a malicious spyware program.

One of Amero's most vocal advocates, Sunbelt Software Inc. CEO Alex Eckelberry said in a blog posting he was"very pleased," with the judge's ruling. But, he cautioned that "there's still the specter of a new trial and so the show isn't over yet."

Evidence presented at Amero's trial showed that the school's computer was infected with malicious JavaScript code, after a visit to a Web site devoted to hair styles, according to Eckelberry.

You know, I have a never ending battle with spyware around here and have to sweep the systems daily. But, seriously, prosecuting something like this is insane. Send someone to prison because spyware was installed, maliciously, by another party? You have got to be kidding.