By Dan Goodin in San Francisco for The Register. This story has
been reproduced with permission.
Amero faced up to 40 years in prison for the offense, which
stemmed from an incident in October of 2004 while she was teaching
at a middle school in Norwich, Connecticut. What seems undisputed
is that a computer in the class room displayed a series of
pornographic images, including one of a couple engaged in oral
sex.
Less clear is how the event came to be. Prosecutors argued Amero
had actively caused the computer to display the images and argued
her actions resulted in felony risk or injury to a minor. Court
rules prevented Amero's defense team from presenting testimony that
could have shown the computer was infected with malware that forced
the computer to display pop-ups.
Amero's conviction became a cause celebre for bloggers and
information security professionals all over the world. They argued,
rather convincingly, that the malware epidemic - and public
officials' frequent obliviousness to it - were responsible for one
of the more spectacular breakdowns in American justice this
decade.
Following Amero's January conviction, a team of pro-bono
researchers set out to analyze the contents of the PC which was
running Windows 98 SE, an operating system with notoriously weak
security.
In setting aside the conviction on Wednesday, Superior Court
Judge Hillary B. Strackbein ruled that the prosecution's expert
computer witness, a Norwich police detective, provided "erroneous"
testimony about the classroom computer, according to
an article in the Hartford Courant. She cited a
forensic computer analysis conducted after the trial by the state
police crime lab, which she said "contradicts testimony of the
state's computer witness."
At Wednesday's hearing, Assistant State Attorney David Smith -
who during the trial argued the evidence was "clear cut" that Amero
had caused the pornography to appear on the computer - acknowledged
that erroneous information concerning the computer was presented to
the jury. He said the state would take no position on Amero's
motion for a new trial, an indication she will not be tried
again.
"A great weight has been lifted off my back," a tearful Amero,
40, said following the ruling.
© The
Register 2007
