Ruling of Judge on Julie Amero
Julie Amero was convicted of impairing morals of seventh-grade children by exposing them to pornographic imagery. Also, the computer was corrupted with spyware and DNS hijacking software. After the appeal, the judge granted a new trial. As a result of felony charged, Julie had to face 40 years in prison. On October 19th, Julie Amero faced the porn ads exploding through her web browser during the class and the issue landed her in the court. The judge after evaluating all the facts and arguments granted a new trial and Julie was given a chance to prove that she had nothing to do with the pornographic imagery shown to seventh graders.
Julie Amero pleaded and tried to maintain in the court that she was a victim of some software infestation that flooded her computer with porn. It is known fact that adware, spyware, and other such software are extremely dangerous to security and privacy. Her sentence was delayed four times after she was convicted which delayed the decision of judges. During the court trial, many of her students testified that they had seen porn images on her computer. However, the attorney pressed upon the fact that malware was the entire reason behind the porn adds not Julie Amero. After thoughtful consideration of facts and arguments, Julie Amero was given a leeway that felony charges would be dropped against her if she pleaded to single charge of disorderly conduct and give up the teacher’s license.
The counsel believed that malware was the reason behind the disorder and Julie was just going through some web pages on her computer. However, the felony charges were dropped, but it remains a mystery whether Julie did it on purpose or malware was to blame for the action. The conclusion provided by the state was to draft out an agreement to suppress the issue since the police and prosecutors were not up to proper investigation and ended upon blaming Julie Amero. The attorney and counsel believed that it was not a mistake of Julie, and the malicious malware was to blame.
The court found the midway rather than deciding in the favor of attorney since all the charges were dropped on a condition that she had to agree to the misconduct and give up the teacher’s license. According to forensic and cyber-crime experts, the question was raised that why police failed to check the computer for malware? At times, malware is the sole reason for opening up such web pages uncontrollably.
Besides the forensic analysis of Julie’s hard disk showed the computer was infected with malicious software even before she arrived at school. Experts also suggest that crime conviction can be based on literally a minute difference between a deliberate mouse click and an automatic redirect on the infected computer. To differentiate between the two is not that easy and is carefully considered by the forensic experts. The decision made was not accurate since they just tried to get riddance.
However, based on digital knowledge state was supposed to investigate the computer properly before making the decision of Julie Amero being charged with disorderly conduct and giving up her teacher’s license. Spyware, adware, worms, and viruses are parasitic programs that have the ability to hijack web browsers and launch pornographic advertisements without the user getting hint of it.
Reference
Alva, A., & Endicott-Popovsky, B. (2012). Digital Evidence Education in Schools of Law. Journal Of Digital Forensics, Security & Law, 7 (2), 75.
