Julie Amero Court Transcripts Online: AKA, Ragearama 2007

There are some important things we can learn from the sad case of Julie Amero:

1) Without fail, almost every single article published on this website seems to present an uneven, hang em' high style approach to journalism that frankly makes me sick. Whether it's this guy deleting blog posts left, right and centre or the main Norwich Bulletin website itself laying its cards on the table by means of presenting a continually slanted take on things with titles such as "Inaction Sank Amero" (apart from the fact it seems to be her actions, rather than inaction which seems to have "sunk" her, heaven forbid they should offer anything up that even remotely sounds like Amero might not be guilty), you're NOT going to get a fair crack of the whip in Norwich, CT.

2) Detective Mark Lounsbury promised we'd all basically look like idiots once the full transcripts became available - like there was some major smoking gun in amongst the wreckage.

Well, I've read about 85% of the documents now, and he's right - there IS a smoking gun in there. The smoking gun is that THIS ENTIRE CASE IS STILL A JOKE.

At some point, major, major alterations were made to the goalposts - the main thrust of the prosecution went from "SHE INTENTIONALLY LOOKED AT PORN! THE POOR KIDS!" to "SHE DIDN'T UNPLUG IT OR SWITCH IT OFF! THE POOR KIDS!"

....it's great how "turning it off" or " unplugging it" WOULD have been considered "doing something about it", but no consideration is given to the similarly productive act of turning the screen away from the class (which wasn't hard, given that the PC was facing away from the kids in the first place). If the kids in the class can't actually see the screen, does it matter at that point whether it's switched on or not?

Is this fair? Or does this smack of rampant stupidity and ignorance?

Worse, the closing argument from the Prosecution guy is ENTIRELY based around Julie Amero INTENTIONALLY ACCESSING PORN IN CLASS AND LOOKING AT IT AND STUFF. The whole stupid "throw a coat on it" thing is mentioned but the alternative of simply turning the screen away (which Amero did) is NOT given any thought as a possible solution.

Because, you know, that would've meant Julie Amero would have gone free.

I'll quote an individual from the Norwich Forum at this point, because they did an awesome job of summarising:

Mr Smith explicitly states in his closing that:

"There are two issues that the state is going to discuss, and the first issue is whether the defendant intentionally accessed those websites. I think the evidence is very strong, very clear cut that the defendant was the only person who had access to that computer; there was no pornography before she got there; there was no pornography accessed after she was gone"

"You would have to actively click to get at these websites"

"Finally, as you recall, I brought Detective Lounsbury back in. Exhibit 6 is hopefully trying to explain the difference in color as to the Javascript elements that he clicked on. Some of use using our common sense understand this; when you click on a webpage it transfers you over. And that changes to show that you actually accessed that page. Take this into account for intent; that the defendant purposely accessed those websites"

"I think the evidence is overwhelming that she did purposely access those websites"

"It is the state's contention that she purposefully went to these websites"

Regardless of what people maintain now as critical facts about how malware works have emerged, this case was by no stretch of the imagination about inaction. It was about actively downloading pornographic content while class was in session. That, and that alone, is what the prosecution closing argument in the written transcript reflects.

At one point, Mr Smith comments:

"However, for the sake of argument, let's go with the defense proposition that this pornography was being filtered in, pumped out, boom, boom, boom, uncontrolled by her. And what you have to do is apply that to the law. Did that create a situation in which the morals of the children were likely to be impaired? What did she have to do to stop that?"

Mr Smith goes on regarding turning off the computer, the monitor, or draping something over the monitor. Naturally, he conveniently ignored turning the monitor away from view as an equally viable solution as well.

Whether or not this paper or Mr Smith wish to admit it, the details of how pornographic content was downloaded to the computer is a material fact in this case. It was the most material fact in the prosecution closing argument. It is a "material fact" based on inaccurate/false testimony. As an officer of the court, Mr Smith has a professional responsibility to notify the court of this state of affairs. That fact alone taints the verdict beyond salvage.

.....wow, look at those goalposts - they've moved ALL THE WAY TO BOLIVIA.

If you want to read the full transcripts, click here...they're in the "Related Articles" box. I have a feeling they should have re-titled it to "Crock-tastic", but I guess you can't have everything.