Teacher could get 40 years in prison. WTF?

[suranyi]

Sorry to bring back this thread from several months ago, but there’s been a new development in this case. The conviction has been set aside, based on new forensic information:

Substitute teacher's conviction for porn popups set aside

Ed

[Musicat]

Sounds promising. I hope sanity will eventually reign.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

I thought it was interesting to note the last sentence of the last post of this thread before the new information was released.

@Bricker

It’s unclear to me that anyone’s testimony is perjured or that the testimony failed to establish the crime.

@article

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.”

While it doesn’t talk about perjury since I think that would have to be intentional, it does talk about “erroneous” testimony.

[Argent_Towers]

@suranyi

Sorry to bring back this thread from several months ago, but there’s been a new development in this case. The conviction has been set aside, based on new forensic information:

Forensic information.

People had to spend time (and money) in a LAB, analyzing forensic data, because of naked pop-ups on a computer.

Some poster here from Denmark said a few days ago that a lot of America’s laws seem like a sketch comedy to him. He was right. For God’s sake…I respect that you legal people here have the knowledge and the desire to discuss the legal aspects of this “case” in detail, but for me, I can’t get beyond the absurd moral panic.

[Voyager]

@Argent Towers

Forensic information.

People had to spend time (and money) in a LAB, analyzing forensic data, because of naked pop-ups on a computer.

Some poster here from Denmark said a few days ago that a lot of America’s laws seem like a sketch comedy to him. He was right. For God’s sake…I respect that you legal people here have the knowledge and the desire to discuss the legal aspects of this “case” in detail, but for me, I can’t get beyond the absurd moral panic.

I suspect that even in Denmark pictures of couples having sex would be out of place in an elementary school classroom.

What’s wrong here is that people with a clue couldn’t see the computer until after the trial.

The Register article said that the state didn’t have an opinion on a new trial, which implies that there won’t be one, and this problem is over.

[Derleth]

@nitetime

Let’s be honest here… these weren’t just pictures of “naked people”, they were disgusting sex acts and bodily fluids. Of course the kids were victims.

This would be funnier if people didn’t actually believe it. As it is, it made me try to spurt coffee I wasn’t actually drinking (an odd sound, let me tell you).

However, porn pop-ups are an obvious result of using an adware-infected computer.

You can get adware from places that look utterly innocuous to the average person, including normal-seeming websites that secretly install ActiveX controls. If you don’t understand what an ActiveX control is or can do, please refrain from making an even bigger ass of yourself in this thread.

The defense’s own case hangs the teacher.

Nonsense. The entire rest of your post is even riper nonsense.

[Mighty_Girl]

@Argent Towers

Forensic information.

People had to spend time (and money) in a LAB, analyzing forensic data, because of naked pop-ups on a computer.

Some poster here from Denmark said a few days ago that a lot of America’s laws seem like a sketch comedy to him. He was right. For God’s sake…I respect that you legal people here have the knowledge and the desire to discuss the legal aspects of this “case” in detail, but for me, I can’t get beyond the absurd moral panic.

FWIW, I also think this is just something out of a Saturday Night Live sketch. That the police was even involved in this is just… :eek:

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.

Oral sex? That’s the worst they saw? :smack:

[Cartooniverse]

The Detective lied.

Under oath. He’s their “expert” and yet was unaware of how flawed Win98SE is/was when it comes to malware? Please. :rolleyes:

He’s a cop and she’s A) A substitute teacher and B) A woman accused of distributing porn to children.

Who do YOU think the jury would want to believe. Fucking asshole cop. So, now that she has been completely exonerated AND informed that she will not be re-tried for this, what of the Detective? Bet he makes Grade 2 off this. :mad:

[Cervaise]

@Voyager

I suspect that even in Denmark pictures of couples having sex would be out of place in an elementary school classroom.

That’s right. The pictures of couples having sex go on the money.

[Chataway]

Considering that the teacher told other teachers and the principal, why the hell is she being punished or even being hauled into court. If she’d been thinking, she should have unplugged the damn computer until the problem was handled. But then she may have gotten busted for not providing a computer to her students. You can’t win in this world. And where is the IT person for this school that the software that blocked this stuff had expired. And it may not be that she went to a porn site, maybe one of the students did it, even on accident (don’t type whitehouse in your address field or you’ll get a porn site) and once you go to those sites, porn just pops up.

This teacher is getting the sharp stick where it hurts the most.

[UntouchedTakeaway]

For what it’s worth, a grandmotherly type at my office had this same thing happen to her. Her grandson wanted to be “Wolverine” for Halloween one year (this happened maybe 5 years ago?) and some weisenheimer told her to try typing “xmen.com” into her browser. She did, and penis definitely ensued. And ensued. And ensued. She was in tears. The IT department was in hysterics - no one was reprimanded.

VCNJ~

@lee

I read about this case. Apparently there was a way she could have plead that might even have got this removed from her record eventually, but she plead not guilty because she never intentionally went to those sites and had faith in the system. Her defense says that he was not allowed to present evidence that would have shown how these image could have gotten there without her doing any thing improper. It seems she was being punished not just for showing porn to kids intentional or not, but also for not taking the deal that they offered her.

I myself on a work computer have gone to such a site by mistyping a website for kinkos. It took me several minutes to shut down the browser and close all the links. I did not turn off the computer as that would have potentially caused data loss. In the case with the teacher, the best thing would have been to shut down the monitor an d disconnect the video output and then report the situation to the IT guy, assuming they have one, so he can diffuse it without a class room of children getting treated to a graphic show, but would be difficult to think rationally if ones computer were showing porn to a bunch of children.

I know of another person who was looking to order a garter for her daughter’s prom and mistyped the url of the website where they could be ordered and had a similar experience. Yet another who had heard about the eat turkey ad campaign website and went to see if there was a similar website for beef and had the computer spew porn at her. Some sites not only spew porn quicker than you can shut down windows, the install malware so that the porn can be triggered afterward without even attempting to go to a malicious site.

It is quite believable that this teacher could have those images pop up without her ever intentionally doing anything innappropriate.

[Voyager]

@Cervaise

That’s right. The pictures of couples having sex go on the money.

Time to start an international currency collection, I see. Darwin, the Queen, the bare boobs on French currency, and Denmark to top it off, as it were.

[Voyager]

@Chataway

Considering that the teacher told other teachers and the principal, why the hell is she being punished or even being hauled into court. If she’d been thinking, she should have unplugged the damn computer until the problem was handled.

She was told very explicitly not to unplug or turn off the computer. Now she could have turned off the monitor, but she was not exactly computer literate, and probably was flustered.

I don’t know if the detective was lying intentionally. I’d guess that he’s the worst kind of computer incompetent - the moron who thinks he knows it all. And he got a cushy job from knowing more than the other cops, I’d bet.

You can read about these kind of people in Computerworld’s Sharktank feature all the time. Few of them cause this much damage to a person, though.