A Teacher Railroaded in to Prison by Lack of Technical Knolwedge

A recent article spoke about a teacher that was released from prison for exposing 7th graders to porn.

Apparently, the scenario was this:
Substitute Teacher is giving class with a computer.
Porn Shows up on the Screen.
Substitute teacher convicted with wrong evidence presented by prosecution to sever decades of prison time.

Now, the first point I want to address is basic law. Means, Opportunity and Motive. Did the teacher have the means to put porn on the computer to show the children, sure and so did just about anybody in the school. Did the teacher have the opportunity, sure and so did just about anybody in the school. Did the teacher have the motive to show porn to the 7th graders? Well, unless the prosecution proved that she was some sick in the head woman that intended to show porn to the children in some beginning overture to having sex with them, I find this pretty unlikely.

So, I find that whatever jury convicted the woman of these criminal actions, they must not have been told that all three factors needed to be proven, or glossed over it completely.

It seems that it would be unlikely that they should convict based on the information in the article.

Now, on to my second point. What exactly is so horrible about sex? What exactly makes it a "felony risk or injury to a minor"? Where these children endangered by the images? Is there some direct link to seeing a few images of porn and growing up to be criminal sexual deviants?

So, it is questionable if there was in fact a crime. If you are going to put someone in prison for "felony risk or injury to a minor" you have to prove that there was damage. Pornography, in and of itself does not pose a direct risk of anything to a minor. It certainly does not perform any damage.

The third and final point is that the courts, judges, lawyers seem to have little knowledge about computers of their own. They depended on an 'expert' to tell them that the woman had done it on purpose. Relying on one expert is a little problematic. But how is it, that no one as a person had not run in to something like this in a personal capacity? Had none of them ever had computers and used them and run in to problems with pop-ups, trojans or viruses?

So, the computer is examined after her conviction and discovered to be 1) Windows 98 and 2) had software on it that would have caused the pornagraphic images to be shown to the class.

#2, is in inference given the articles content and the contradiction of the state's witness saying that she had to have done it on purpose. The state's witness was a police officer with which we are given no information as to his training or how he made the determination that the woman showed the pornography to the children on purpose.

So, who is really guilty, if in fact damage was done to minors? Well, look, you can't be running windows 98 SE as your OS, here in 2007. The software is far out of date and as mentioned in the article, weak on security. Perhaps the IT person at the school should be charged with negligence? Or perhaps the people who pay the taxes for the school should be charged, for not paying enough taxes to buy computers on a regular schedule and protect them from things liket his? Or maybe the school board for not making the decision to have up-to-date and protected computers?

Or maybe they should attempt to find the person who wrote the malware affecting the computer and go after that person? Or perhaps they should go after the websites whose contents were shown?

Maybe they should go after the internet itself??? Who knows where it could stop?

So, they aren't going to re-try this woman for what happened - which was pretty clearly at this point an accident. What would have happened to this woman if the computer had been wiped or the hard drive in its aging case crashed since her conviction?

They were going to put her away for 40 years for this? This batch of stupidity and accident?

I think a few people need a reality check. The basic premise of the case needs to be re-assessed. Prove needs to be given that subjecting 7th graders to pornography once will damage them in some way for life.