Though this isn't about the Presidential primaries, or any of that business, I think this blatant miscarriage of justice deserves attention here at Daily Kos (and if someone has already posted on it, please let me know so I can delete this diary.) I just learned about this horror at My Left Nutmeg, so I don't have a lot of analysis to add; my goal is simply to bring this to people's attention.
The basic storyline here is that a 40 year old woman was substitute teaching in Norwich, Connecticut (the "Flower City"), when the computer she was using apparently acted up. The computer, supplied by the school system, supposedly maintained by the school system, and purely and utterly under the control of the school system, was infected with with viruses and malware up the wazoo. As a result, certain things came up on the screen that were outside the control of this woman, Julie Amero, and resulted in her being arrested and convicted of four felonies relating to "injury or risk of injury to, or impairing morals of, children," with each count having a potential sentence of 10 years. In other words, for using someone else's infected computer, a substitute teacher could be going to jail for 40 years.
Apparently, and again I'm getting most of this from My Left Nutmeg, the school system had failed to pay for the updates to the necessary virus protection and anti-malware and spyware protection. They were also using outdated versions of Internet Explorer (and it seems like everyday a new IE exploit is discovered) as well as Win 98. The deck was certainly stacked against protecting the children.
Julie Amero has been fired from her subsitute teaching job, and is now a convicted felon. Some lawyers out there might ask why she didn't attempt to cop a deal with the prosecutors and plead guilty, but apparently she may have been pregnant at the time of the incident and arrest. (By the way, that website State v. Amero is attempting to compile information on the case and looks to be a good clearinghouse for information for those so interested).
Definitely read the post at My Left Nutmeg, in part since it's written with far more information and links than I'm providing here (as well as the fact that Maura is far more eloquent than I).