Was Julie Amero wrongly convicted?
Nobody contested the fact that sites containing pornography were displayed on, and therefore accessed by, the computer in Mr Napp’s 7th Grade class. The question, of course was, did Julie Amero do it, and more importantly, did she do it knowingly and intentionally? This is where the evidence gets fuzzy. The State’s Attorney, David Smith, reportedly told the jury: “You have to physically click on it to get to those sites.” Other times he appears to have gone further, and suggested not only that Amero clicked on the URLs, but that she physically typed them in. Oh really? The theory that Amero deliberately typed the URLs into the computer is the same idea as that expressed outside the courtroom by school officials, like Norwich Schools Superintendent Pam Aubin who reportedly said: “This wasn’t just [someone clicking on] popups [advertisements].
