Porno Pop-up Case Teacher Gets a New Trial

AlterNet first began reporting on this story back in January and eventually the mainstream press also picked up the story and ran with it, but until now things looked pretty grim for Julie Amero. She was found guilty of intentionally showing her seventh grade students pornography even though she vehemently denied these charges and said that what the children saw was a pop-up ad which appeared under circumstances completely beyond her control. Amero, 40, would probably face about 40 years in jail if her conviction stood. But finally, yesterday, some good news.

According to Raw Story (via the AP), the computer in question was sent to a state lab to be analyzed and the results show a discrepancy between the computer's history and the evidence presented by the prosecutors presented during the initial trial. Amero and her defenders have said since the very beginning of this ordeal, back in 2004, that the computers the students were using was old and lacked the kind of spyware and firewall capabilities that would have prevented pornographic pop-up ads from appearing. "The jury may have relied, at least in part, on that faulty information,'' said Judge Hillary B. Strackbein, who granted the request for a new trial. This time, hopefully, Julie Amero will be exonerated by the facts instead of being overwhelmed by the hysteria over pornography