Aw, YEAH

[filkertom]

Julie Amero, the teacher who was going to be railroaded into forty years of prison because (gasp!) there was smut on a school computer in her vicinity, has been granted a retrial. Thanks to skemono for the heads-up.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

More:

"...today, [prosecutor] Smith said state would take no position on Dow's motion for a new trial, making it unlikely she will be tried again."

So she got the previous ruling tossed and the state isn't going to retry.

Granted, I think it's good news that she won't serve 40 years...but I'm worried that, with this never to be formally resolved, and a story like that one attached to her, her life has been permanently marred by a case which should have been laughed out of the courtroom.

Part of the reason I've become interested in the law as a field is that it's painfully behind the times, especially in computer matters. Usually it's the laws themselves, but here, it's the judges and attorneys, who just don't get it. An increasingly computer-reliant society can't afford to have its legal system hamstrung like that.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

It still pisses me off that that had to see a courtroom at all; "retrial" involves something other than a "this is total bullshit" approach to the whole thing.

And, of course, she's not likely to see the inside of a classroom again even if she is completely cleared. :P

[moquif.livejournal.com]

That's the big problem. Even if your innocent, being accused of child abuse (in any form) can ruin your life. It's too easy to think of other reasons why charges were dropped apart from "the person didn't do it". It's no different the witch hunts or red scares. If you're different, you're a target.

I'm an overweight, liberal, atheist, anime and sci-fi fan, SWM in a neighborhood of religious conservatives. I fear that one day I'll be accused of something because the victim is too scared to finger the ones who are actually guilty and I'll be judged not on the evidence but who I am.

I feel very sorry for this woman. She did nothing wrong and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and for that her career will never be the same. Everywhere she goes someone is going to protest because of the charges and bogus conviction and it's easier to find a new teacher than put up with the protesters. Even if she's hired when something goes wrong, guess who people will think of first.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Heh, it reminds me of something I saw in the National Post a couple of years ago, which I accidentally read now and then despite it being the FOX News of Canadian print media. It head a front-page article stating, as a fact, that science-fiction fans and computer enthusiasts will be the next wave of child molestors, and should be seen as suspect by the fact of their existence, not by any particular actions.

I kinda wonder how many people got nailed by that.

And yeah; I remember some of the things people were saying about her when she was first accused. Anything less than a complete acquital and she's toast, and even then she's still toast.

[skalja.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank goodness. Thank goodness thank goodness.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

What year does the National Pissed think this is, anyway? The first generation of genuine science fiction fans and computer enthusiasts are already dead, like of old age, and there hasn't been any appreciable spike in computer-and-SF-fuelled child molestation yet... Typical conservatives, somehow or other they missed the last fifty or seventy years.

[connor-campbell.livejournal.com]

would love to have read this article, i am a substitute teacher myself. but it required signing up for, and i AM "wary of strangers" to coin a phrase from your "quiz" entry...

anywho, i take it from the previous comments that she will prolly get off (how's that for unconventional spelling?) but it is very frustrating, infuriating, and frightening (some alliteration for "unique-ness")that it was taken seriously at all. granted, i learned early on (say, the first month) in my time as a sub teacher that one of my first and strictest personal classroom rules was going to be NO STUDENTS USE ANY COMPUTERS ON MY WATCH! if the teacher lists using a computer as part of a lesson, then they had better have time in a supervised computer lab set up, or it just isn't happening. i made sure to keep emergency lessons on hand for such occasions and left a page long (at least) log of EVERYTHING that happened while i was there that day. if little timmy picked his nose, the teacher knew about it, and i made sure the kids knew she would. hence i have had a long, successful career as a sub, and am now going on the finish my bachelor's for a class of my own.

can you say "CYA", boys and girls?

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Much as I hate to say it, Ms. Amero is benefiting from gender privilege. If it were Mr. Julian Amero instead, all other circumstances being precisely the same, they'd have strung him up from a tree. This is one of the very few situations in which women actually have some advantage over men because of common stereotypes.

(Note: this is not to say that I don't wholeheartedly support Ms. Amero, nor that I would not as wholeheartedly support a man in her situation. But the fact remains that she's getting a much fairer break because she's female and middle-aged.)

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, but they only imagined Malign Technology, while we, the inheritors of their desired Evil, have access to it!

Or the paper's just full of crap. It is the Post.

[old-fortissimo.livejournal.com]

Off topic: it bears mention that the same Skemono who tipped off The World's Fastest Filker to this story this last month was graduated from Purdue University with high distinction.:D

So it has now been mentioned, and you are now returned to the thread. Move along, now, there's a good person.

[moquif.livejournal.com]

Please please please tell me you're kidding about how they think we should be a suspect just because we're there not because of any facts. Because there are times when the public demands someone be charged and it's easy to blame the geek/nerd. If you're not, can you provide a link to the article so I can see for myself?

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Alas, I can't; this was three or four years ago and I saw it in the physical paper.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Yes! And now, we dance the MaMOUSHka!