Got Justice?

Scientific American recently ran a piece called Who Will Die? Computer Predicts Which Death Row Inmates Will Be Executed

New system finds that education level is more of a factor than race or severity of crime by Larry Greenemeier. The major thesis and finding of the computer analysis is:

Capital punishment is legal in 36 states, but that does not necessarily mean all of the condemned will be executed. Some will languish behind bars for life and others may actually be exonerated and set free. Now researchers say they have built a computer system that can predict with 92 percent accuracy which death row inmates are most likely to be executed, a development they hope will lead to a fairer appeals process.

According to the system, the death row inmates most likely to be executed are those with the lowest levels of education. The researchers, from Texas A&M University–Texarkana and Loyola University New Orleans, report in the International Journal of Law and Information Technology, that neither the severity of the crime nor race—the latter of which is often cited as a key factor in convictions—are reliable forecasters of a prisoner's fate.

The system consists of 18 computer processors designed to analyze data the way that a human brain does—by studying one set of data and comparing it with another data set to find similarities and differences. In this case, researchers fed the system information about 1,000 death row prisoners, including their sex, age, race, highest year of school completed, the state in which they were incarcerated, and whether they were ultimately executed or spared. Once the system had established patterns (of traits most prevalent among the executed) from this initial pool, the researchers fed it similar information about 300 more prisoners (leaving out whether they had lived or died). The system, using logic it had developed from the first set of data, correctly predicted the outcome for 276 (92 percent) of the prisoners.

The system's success "has serious implications concerning the fairness of the justice system," says Stamos Karamouzis, dean of Regis University's School of Computer and Information Sciences in Denver, who led the 2006–07 study when he was a professor of computer and information sciences at Texas A&M. "People against the death penalty use the results of this work by pointing out that the nature of the crime has nothing to do with whether you're executed or not."

The article drifts off topic which is too bad because this is a truly disturbing pattern.

What it can mean is that prisoners are intellectually incapable of defending themselves from a system looking for easy sacrificial victims. And by easy we're talking about those who are easily fooled by the tricks of a system that preys on their logical and cognitive vulnerability.

Given the accuracy of the projections, it is not hard to imagine who is being added to the death list. Take a class roster from the failing schools, tally the number of projected criminals based on population and do some math. Today's inner city dropouts are dead (predominantly) men dropping out of schools happy to see them go so that the standardized test scores look good.

A By-product of the Julie Amero Case

The group of experts who pooled their talents in a volunteer effort to aid the defense of Julie Amero have set up a website that hopes to address the myriad issues that afflict teachers, parents, schools, business, and others who get trapped in the legal system.

The Julie Group will identify worthy cases of injustice and see where they go. We do not expect to always be right but we do hope to shed some light on the subject no matter what the conclusion.

Education will be a big subject. Preventative computing practices that minimize exposure to inappropriate content will be endorsed. Educational materials for use in schools will be examined and recommended.

Lawyers looking to offer pro bono services might drop in to see what we're up to and recommending as worthy causes.

Police and enforcement agencies will find the Julie Group receptive to offering independent second opinions of cyber-crime cases.

The new home for computer forensic discussions are The Julie Group or http://thejuliegroup.blogspot.com

Tho not always identified the Julie Group includes the planet's finest computer forensic practitioners and generalists as well as key journalists and enforcement observers.

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The Courant Is On Fire!

For the past six months or so the Courant news organization that covers central Connecticut has suddenly rediscovered the art of journalism. Their coverage of education issues has been outstanding and they seem to have transitioned from being doormats for whatever the cat dragged in to becoming advocates and ambassadors for real news in the state.

Today, two pieces of interest to regular readers of my blog.

First Rick Green's column (why isn't this guy syndicated by the Tribune Company??? - HELLLLOOOOOOO!). Rick's Porn Case: Ducking For Cover continues the narrative of the Julie Amero case.

"The evidence is very strong, very clear-cut, that the defendant was the only person that had access to that computer," Smith said in his closing argument. The pop-ups argument, he told judge and jury, was ridiculous.

"It's very clear that that just didn't happen," Smith concluded.

He was careful to repeat the lurid names of the websites and to project the dirty pictures on a large screen for the court to see. These were images that never popped up in the classroom, but the state was too busy to bother with this detail.

"The evidence is overwhelming ... she purposefully went to these websites. ... We know that the images on there were offensive," Smith said, ramming his point home. "She clearly should not have allowed this to happen. The evidence is clear. She is guilty of all the charges."

Except when you consider the facts.

That's just a teaser. Click on the link to read the whole thing. This is compelling Connecticut journalism at its finest. Rick is one of the few mainstream journalists to take this story seriously and he gets it right.

Second, is an opinion piece by twenty-something Kevin Miner called Why I'm leaving Connecticut. Every taxpayer in this state should read this with an open mind. Connecticut thanks to the anti-leadership of Lieberman and an anemic Republican and Democratic political establishment is in the toilet as a place to live and work. An ever self-enriching government bureaucracy is economically bleeding the state dry of private sector incentives to do business here. The result? Citizens being over-taxed, underfunded locally, and a withering, ever-more-hostile business environment.

Kevin Miner speaks truth here:

It was a hard winter for me. To pay the bills, I worked part time for a media research company. However, at 20 hours a week, I couldn't even afford to pay my car insurance. In March, I thought things were finally picking up. I had an interview with a manufacturing company that wanted a technical writer. At last my hard work and perseverance had paid off. But it was not to be. During the interview, the supervisor told me that many in the company believed that my purpose at the company was to train workers overseas. I shook his hand and walked out the door.

But the nail in the coffin isn't Connecticut's present - it's the future. Connecticut is stagnant in several key categories. We rank 49th out of 50th in job growth and per capita federal spending. We rank behind Alabama in tax funds appropriated for operating expenses for colleges and universities, for student aid and for state higher-education agencies, according the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University.

What's worse, our elected officials are rewarded, rather than castigated, for exacerbating the problem. While neighboring states New York and New Jersey have passed property tax reform to ease the tax burden on middle-class families, Connecticut has done no such thing. While Massachusetts has become the first state in the union to have universal health insurance, Connecticut also has done no such thing.

At a time when we should invest in fuel-efficient cars and transportation alternatives, our representatives suggest temporary suspension of the gas tax.

Where are the elected leaders who will invest in 21st-century energy production, lowering electric rates for homeowners and businesses? Where are the public officials who will invest in more efficient modes of transportation? Why, if we like our UConn Huskies so much, do we appropriate less tax money for post-secondary education operating expenses than Alabama? What realistic hope does Connecticut have to compete in the new economy?

At 25, I am part of the fastest-growing age segment that is leaving Connecticut. I did not want to leave, but a prohibitively high cost of living coupled with widespread complacency and ineptitude at the state Capitol have sealed my fate. I liked Connecticut's shorelines, its state parks and its midsize, human-scale cities. How many more people like me have to leave before the rest of the state gets the message?

Criminalizing Youth

An opinion piece in the New York Times called Juvenile Injustice describes the effect of the automatic sentencing of youth as adult offenders;

The United States made a disastrous miscalculation when it started automatically trying youthful offenders as adults instead of handling them through the juvenile courts. Prosecutors argued that the policy would get violent predators off the streets and deter further crime. But a new federally backed study shows that juveniles who do time as adults later commit more violent crime than those who are handled through the juvenile courts.

The study, published last month in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, was produced by the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, an independent research group with close ties to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After an exhaustive survey of the literature, the group determined that the practice of transferring children into adult courts was counterproductive, actually creating more crime than it cured.

A related and even more disturbing study by Campaign for Youth Justice in Washington finds that the majority of the more than 200,000 children a year who are treated as adults under the law come before the courts for nonviolent offenses that could be easily and more effectively dealt with at the juvenile court level.

Examples include a 17-year-old first-time offender charged with robbery after stealing another student’s gym clothes, and another 17-year-old who violated his probation by stealing a neighbor’s bicycle. Many of these young nonviolent offenders are held in adult prisons for months or even years.

My, my, yet another one of those obvious-to-the-rabid-mob things that backfires in our faces. Anybody tired of the heavy-handed stupidity of ever escalating punishments on children?

Oh, all right, progress is just around the corner, maybe we'll do something about it next year. Connecticut, once a beacon of political brilliance, is a leading jailer of youth. Mighty Christian of us.

The Amero Case from the Back of the Room

The other day Steve Jobs provided a wake-up call about Teacher Unions and Marcie Hull wrote an open letter back to Steven Jobs that in part contained the following.

I would also like to ask you what type of people do you think THIS (national average $47,808 in 2005) salary will attract? How can education attract the best and the brightest and this goes for the administration TOO, when the salaries being offered are not a living wage in this country! What person in their right mind is going to weigh their options upon graduation and think that being a teacher is the right move economically!

You may now ask me why I stay because in the private sector my experience could reap WAY MORE! I stay because almost every teacher that I have met is incredibly dedicated, loves their job and loves the kids they teach even more. I learn more in a day as a teacher then in any job I have ever had. I love the interactions I have with kids, parents, colleagues, and administrators. These reasons along with a ton of others is what keeps me going as a teacher.

I have been a teacher in one of the toughest schools Philadelphia and every teacher there got cursed at, spit at, laughed at, made to feel worthless and completely disrespected AND everyday these people showed up! Showed up for the kids!

Steve Jobs I challenge you to spend one hour in my shoes - ONE HOUR! I challenge you to walk into West Philadelphia High or Overbrook High School... meet some teachers there! Go into a failing school anywhere USA, I will wager you that you will find a school full of teachers that care and do the best possible job they can with what they are given to work with!!!!

Mr. Jobs I love your products and I love what you say about form being as important as function, but I totally disagree with what you say about teachers and their unions.

"Go into a failing school anywhere USA, I will wager you that you will find a school full of teachers that care and do the best possible job they can with what they are given to work with!!!!"

I think Marcie has just expressed why so many people have lined up to support Julie Amero as much as they have. These schools are tough places to be.

When we read court transcripts where four of five students who mention where they sat in Julie's class answer that it was the back of the classroom we cannot help but question why the school administration somehow decided that these students had more credibility than the teacher.

You see the administration insists that it was obvious that Julie should have pulled a plug. But isn't something even more obvious?

Isn't it obvious that out of the 60 plus students interviewed a cluster who sit at the back of the class claim the most graphic sex scenes. And these scenes are not visible to the other teacher, Jenny Fagin, sitting at the front of the room or the rest of the classes all of whom sit that much closer? And wasn't it obvious that the vernacular sometimes used on the original police reports to describe what they saw could more likely have come from a New York City pimp as a responsible middle school student?

As Marcie's letter to Steve Jobs states, teachers are targets in tough schools. Teachers aren't corrupting any morals there, they just hold their ground if they can. And, as Marcie says they, "do the best possible job they can" just as Julie Amero claims she did.

The school administration used the poorest of judgment in the Amero case and I think it's obvious they deserve to be fired.

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Perjury in the Amero Trial?, Part Deux

I just realized something today, that escaped my notice yesterday. It has to do very much with the loss of accuracy in the accounts of what the students claim to have seen.

You see, the police deferred the interviewing of students to Principal Fain who knows nothing about establishing fact from fiction, establishing the context of an assertion, or what might might prejudice the sworn statements of a witness. And that's why something very curious happens with the students who the police identify as victims instead of witnesses.

When Sgt. Belair testifies that all the students assert seeing something inappropriate on the monitor we and the jury are led to believe that these students saw the inappropriate material under Julie Amero's supervision AND during the time period that the police claim the computer logs show pornographic traffic. Belair testifies to this because he believes Fain has properly screened these students whose statements the police transcribe from Fain's original dialogues.

What goes very wrong is that no one investigates the allegations with an unprejudiced eye. And what you'll learn next may surprise you and render the trial a mistrial.

Our attention turns to Student #4 [S4]. On October 19, S4 had Julie as a substitute teacher in Language Arts approximately between 9 and 10 o'clock and he's heard rumors that Julie was surfing for porn and he or his parents believe he saw something inappropriate.

He describes seeing people in bathing suits on a body rating site so naturally both police and those of us independently investigating the case try mapping what he saw to the porn images and decide he's seen women in lingerie [after all Julie admits to seeing porn and this seems to fit]. But we're all wrong!

Update and correction:


You see, Student #4 also had homeroom with Mr. Napp prior to 9 a.m. and the interview with Girl #2 [G2] that Belair threw out in yesterday's blog says she saw the same site on the monitor. The only class she has in this room is homeroom. This means S4 and G2, see the monitor while in homeroom BEFORE the porn logging activity. In fact what they witness but falsely remember as belonging to Amero may belong to Mr. Napp's browsing in homeroom while Julie is out or before Julie gets there.

So what are they reporting? Possibly this. Mr. Napp's machine logs the access of a dating website prior to 8 a.m. called eHarmony. In 2004, the national website craze was something called Hot or Not? where users would rate all kinds of things including the looks of potential dates. What S4 and G2 may have seen was an artifact of Mr. Napp's or a student's search for a romance date.

Furthermore this activity may have seeded the Orbitz pop-up [for, say, a singles cruise] and maybe the hair-styles site [to look good on a date] that Julie finds on the machine when she returns from the ladies room with students looking at the monitor.

In other words, S4's testimony may relate to Mr. Napp and not Julie. And the trigger for the subsequent porn - the hair-styles site may have been the trailer to Mr. Napp's morning activity and not anything having to do with Julie's use.

But here we encounter a second malfeasance. Napp is allowed to investigate Julie's network activity with Mr. Hartz and they exclude Napp's potential duplicity by focusing on computer activity logs starting after 8:38 when homeroom has ended. They assume Julie is guilty inadvertently veiling Napp's morning browser activity.

Troubling stuff, no?

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Perjury in Amero Trial?

Michael Belair's trial testimony is worth our scrutiny for two reasons. The first involves this exchange;

David Smith: Without telling us exactly what they told you, when you spoke to these children, did it cause an alarm that something might have occurred where they saw something on the computer?

Michael Belair: They each told me they had seen something inappropriate on the computer.

Belair's answer is false. Michael Belair interviewed thirteen teenagers in Julie Amero's classes. Two of the girls interviewed had their statements dismissed. One [G1], Belair claims has no first hand knowledge of the incident but had heard rumors. The second girl [G2], claims to see a website that allows you to rate people by looks but sees NO PORN [Police Narrative Supplement, Ref: 04-5212-OF, page 9].

Student 2, a prosecutorial witness was interviewed by Belair as well. Student 2, in the same supplemental police narrative [Ref: 04-5212-OF] claims that he saw Amero's monitor between 9 and 10 o'clock and it's blank but he claims to see a site called chicks.com. No such site appears in the log files for Napp's computer and Belair himself notes this in the same document.

In essence, this student has no first hand knowledge either except as a verifiable false witness for the prosecution [unlike G1]. In a separate document, another victim asserts Student 2 told him he saw porn but that's not what Student 2 swears to. Belair either confuses the facts or believes that the hearsay of one accuser trumps the sworn statement of the accuser himself.

Let's just say we have a witness with a credibility problem here.

Everything else Student 2 testifies to is hearsay, yet neither Belair, Smith, or the judge disallow the testimony nor does Belair note this exception.

Student 4 testifies to seeing women in bathing suits. This is later claimed to be lingerie on a site where you could rate who was better looking. This appears to be the exact same site G2 witnessed and tells Belair "she did not see any pornographic images when she looked at the computer"'. Inappropriate? G2 says no such thing nor does Student 4.

The second reason Belair's testimony is interesting involves this exchange;

Davis Smith: Officer Belair, did you see anybody operating that computer and viewing those websites?

Belair: No, I did not.

Well, if Belair did not see Julie access these websites, who did? The students who allege seeing her "looking at" pornography never claim she is accessing it although they infer she did. The students assume she's guilty and the police assume the students are victims instead of accusers.

And Smith has no problem with the act of coupling images from websites that may or may not have been displayed on Julie's monitor and implying that these were seen by students. Is this ethical prosecutorial behavior?

Furthermore, Belair defers initial student questioning to Mr. Fain who has no qualifications to perform police work. It remains unclear what Mr. Fain says to these students. Are they asked to testify against Julie because he thinks she's guilty of something? Does he prejudice the witnesses before they make their statements? And are these witnesses cherry-picked while exculpatory witnesses are selectively ignored?

This procedure simply doesn't pass the sniff test.

The fact is that whatever pornography that may have showed up during Amero's day, shows up on Mr. Napp's computer under Mr. Napp's account. A verifiable rumor has it that approximately one year later, in that same classroom, some students are caught downloading porn and creating CDs of it. Julie Amero had nothing to do with this and that's the only significant difference.

The police guidelines for identifying patterns of pornography are that offenders have a history of downloading the stuff and that they horde it and find it to have value.

Let's see... Amero repeatedly reported her problem and tried to rid the computer of it so I guess she's NOT hoarding anything but on the other hand...

Oh, you connect the dots and ask yourself why the school and the police never followed up. Because if anyone did, Julie would be exonerated.

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Involuntary Manslaughter in the Amero Case?

That's the question that I ask myself as I read the transcript of the Amero case found here. Some of my colleagues compare the prosecutor to [expletive deleted] for the alleged disregard he had for exculpatory evidence that he allegedly chose to exclude from the trial.

Assuming David Smith's alleged disregard for evidence favorable to Julie Amero's innocence, does it make any sense to pursue the charge of mere prosecutorial misconduct when in fact Julie Amero's miscarriage can be, in no small part, attributed to the pursuit of trying a woman while allegedly knowing that the complete body of evidence proved no crime. Now, I'm no lawyer but if prosecutorial misconduct is to be taken seriously then the judiciary needs to examine this case carefully. A life was lost! Shouldn't those responsible be charged with involuntary manslaughter?

What do you think? What if it were your kid?

There are two problems with alleging prosecutorial misconduct. One is that the charge is usually sought to throw out a guilty verdict. There is enough dirty laundry in the Amero trial, IMO, to render this a mistrial under any circumstance. The mountain of misinformation fed to the jury and the failure of the jury to establish a mens rea to match the charges is compelling enough.

But the bigger problem is that a charge of prosecutorial misconduct rarely results in even a slap on the wrist. Maybe it is time for the judicial branch to take its own crimes as seriously as it takes everyone else's.

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The REAL Complaints About Julie Amero

There is no doubt the victims in the Amero case complained about Julie Amero but the police reports never transcribed what the real complaints were.

Why? Julie Amero was tried and convicted by school administrators in the press and to the parents. The police were merely the instruments of getting her to a "fair trial" that would in the immortal words of a Norwich Bulletin -cough- journalist, "She’ll get what’s due to her"!

Today, the phrase "fair trial" in America is as meaningful as the words "new and improved" on a bottle of detergent. Fair trials have simply become the public spectacles in which enraged public mobs mete out their anger through the play-acting of the court. The state, prosecutors and police are endowed with unlimited resources by which to toy with the accused and their rag-doll defense attorneys. And the public are forever fascinated by these Kafka inspired passion plays.

It is STILL unclear what Julie Amero was convicted of and it torments her as much as those who try to defend her. She was depressed at her trial and, not surprisingly, remains distressed. She has a right to be. Her situation is not significantly different from a torture technique on political prisoners around the world.

"Confess!", the prisoner is told.

"To what?", the prisoner replies.

"You know what!", the torturer retorts. And so it repeats, over and over. The prisoner confessing to every petty foible they can imagine and many they did not do. But nothing satisfies the torturer.

We all have proof Amero did nothing inappropriate. Smith, the prosecutor has and had it. So did the police, the school administrators. The judge should have known, should have had the same suspicions we all have, but played the willing fool instead. Why spoil the public humiliation, the gratification of a hungry mob, why ruin the spectacle? In small town America you can get away with kangaroo courts if nobody is watching.

Here's what they knew or should have known had they read the statements of the students.

Only three "victims" claim to have seen pornography from their seats. This group is clustered in the second Language Arts class. None of the students sitting in the same seats in the first or third classes report any such thing. Many of these students use precisely the same description of what they saw, "little pictures". To put this into context, the screen sizes used in schools are the smaller 14 or 15 inch monitors so when we are told students sitting approximately 10 feet away looking at a screen tilted at an angle away from them see little pictures we can believe they were little.

But seven other students were not to be denied. They all admit that when they heard the rumor that the teacher was surfing for porn, they made excuse to visit her desk. So a small parade of students, find a question, or need to use the bathroom, or have a piece of paper that needs to be thrown away at the teacher's desk. Almost to a student, though, they admit they want to see the porn.

But here's where the students start complaining.

Victim #8 complains that Julie clicks off the screen. Victim #3, corroborates this.

Victim #1 so aggressively approaches Julie that she has to push his face away and admonishes him not to look at the screen. In the sequence of events, victim #1's behavior implies an a priori expectation that something on the screen is or will be of interest and this may be the trigger source for the rumors that swirl around the first Language Arts class and co-ordinate around the special interest group in the second Language Arts class.

A student who is not listed as a victim but who loudly claim to know everyone else's experience walks up and sees nothing more than a server error message on the screen. His vicarious descriptions of classroom logistics makes interesting reading nonetheless because the porn story oneupmanship between students shows a storyline here.

Victim #7 complains that Julie turned the monitor to the wall when he approached.

Victim #8 complains that when the teacher noticed her advances, she clicked off the monitor. The police narrative changes the word 'monitor' to 'screen'.

Victim #10 claims, "when she realized I was coming she shifted her body to block the screen. She let me print my story and I went back to my desk."

In fact in all three classes Julie was in only a handful of students make salacious claims and those we'll talk about at another time. Furthermore, we know from police documents that other students walked up to Julie's desk and report no pornography but because they aren't "victims" the police ignore their statements.

And we also know that Principal Fain has preceded all police interrogations with his own vigilante interrogation of over 60 students armed with Mr. Hartz's CD of pornographic sites visited. So by the time the students talk to police they already predisposed and maybe even encouraged to elaborate on the events of that day.

The irreparable harm that these blundering, groping moral guardians of society inflict on Julie Amero is the true crime. Yet not a one of the guilty has even been inconvenienced.

And far from being negligent there's plenty of evidence that Julie did the right thing over and over again but never realized she was attempting to stop a phenomenon that is as relentless as a Hollywood monster that won't die.

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Drawing Evidence Missing in the Amero Trial

As those of us who doubted the verdict in the Julie Amero trial began to investigate the case found, the Norwich Bulletin's coverage of the matter was dumb-founding. They left the impression from the trial that students were exposed to class long doses of pornography yet Amero pleaded innocent to the charges. The two perceptions didn't match.

On this blog I am a vocal and loud advocate that schools get with it in terms of technology and I recommend lots of great free and commercial products [that I make not a dime off of] that I think are worth having in class.

So an idea came to mind. I wrote Wes Volle, Julie's husband, and asked him to draw a picture of what Julie's classroom looked like using GE's Imagination Cubed Virtual drawing tool. It took Wes a few tries but he finally produced this rudimentary sketch.

Say what! The teacher who had a direct line of sight at Julie's computer sees little more than pictures in browser panels. She doesn't see porn but some students report fantastic pornographic details.

We'll talk about this more. By the way, Julie's screen was a 14" or 15" Dell monitor based on what we know today.

Are you all getting the idea that there's something very wrong here?

You'll see that the PC monitor is facing the teacher's desk and the corner of a windowed wall. Clearly students aren't being exposed to much of anything.

Later, we found out Julie had a Team teacher in the classroom. Someone who reported nothing about pornography - just Julie "surfing" throughout the period. So I asked Wes for a diagram showing where she sat. I got this diagram back:

Keep in mind that the arrow indicates the direction the monitor was pointing and that when a student approached her desk she swerved the monitor at a further angle away from the class. This detail provided in the student's own sworn statement.

Are you getting ill yet that Julie lost her child based on this and on March 2 she'll be sentenced to provide yet another pound of flesh for the hungry, frightened mob in Loonsbury?

We'll return to these drawings soon and an analysis of student vernaculars that aren't acquired by the accidental exposure to a single sexually explicit photo.

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Julie Amero, American Hero

We got a lot of things wrong early on when we defended Julie Amero. We believed slanted newspaper reports declaring that she maniacally sat at a computer whose monitor was exposed like a 52" HDTV to a classroom of teens who shriveled in horror as they were forced to watch Amero's crazed pornographic obsession play itself out in class after class.

Many of us who knew what must have happened explained that she was "hapless", "incompetent", "an idiot", and so on. We were all wrong. This is our Mea Culpa - late - too little - but true.

After the tragedy of 9-11, America, wracked by guilt and shame, went on a feel good crusade in the only way it knew how. That is, by declaring everyone in a uniform a hero and by showering police, fire, and security related organizations with money and toys that would be unimaginable prior to the attacks. Never mind that by declaring every policeman, fireman, and gun-toting government official a hero for merely showing up diminished the bravery and sacrifice of those who rise above the day-to-day routine of doing their job. And never mind that in everyday life people who don't wear uniforms perform far more heroically than too many government slackers.

So America went on a spending spree that delivered Hummers to small town police departments in the event that Ma and Pa Kettle suddenly might start Taliban training camps in Appalachia. And in Indiana, local skating rinks were secured as though crazed extremists were as likely to attack a roller rink party as the Statue of Liberty. America invested in mountains of junk vehicles, military armaments, and extreme gadgetry as if hostile aliens were about to land any minute.

No aliens arrived. No Taliban camps were started. Crickets chirped, were tracked, identified, and blown away with high caliber, state of the art weaponry that video-taped the shells exploding their tiny bodies into harmless nano-particles of goodness. America was embarrassed by this so America decided that during sweeps week, they would create enemies worthy of the excess. A video onslaught of stalkers, sex fiends, thugs, bullies, cannibals, snatchers of candy from babies were elevated to the terrifying position of demigods of evil that America's bored heroes should engage in combat.

In Norwich, Connecticut, the police department received a $300,000 state of the art police van to cruise around in and, well, look for terrorists and, eh, barring that find something to do with it. So they did.

They made beer runs with it and employed eager, crime-fighting young women [18 and younger] to help them entrap shop-keepers [the closest thing to terrorists in Norwich] who sold beer to minors. In three documented instances each of these young ladies were asked to take some of their clothes off to prove [nod, wink] that they weren't wearing wires [we don't want to lose a case on technicalities, do we]. Nobody seems to know if these photos made it to an internet site.

In contrast, on May 2 of 2004, Principal Fain reported to the Norwich Bulletin that at the Kelly Middle School [800 students] there were 27 police visits and 14 arrests for violent activity.

One of those incidences involved Julie Amero. On April 14, 2004, Julie was a substitute teacher when a fight broke out in the school. The regular staff all closed their doors and pretended nothing was going on. A janitor warned Julie not to get involved. Julie ignored him and arrived too late. A thirteen year old girl was badly beaten up by another girl at the school. Julie arrived in time to comfort the bleeding child. Julie was the last person the girl would see before she slipped into a coma.

A few months later, Julie is again substituting and is accused of cruising the internet all day instead of engaging the students.

I cannot comprehend why we choose to spend pennies on education and demand draconian accountability of schools that need security, training, and 21st century technology to function yet we ask no accountability for billions of wasted dollars on toys for police who abuse our trust.

But the more I learn about teachers like Julie Amero the more I think that America's real heroes are not just those wearing uniforms but those who serve in the trenches of our school systems that are often more violent than our streets and far more complex than busting merchants for serving under-aged customers.

In a future blog posting I will revisit our earlier assumptions about what happened in Julie's classroom and the pornography allegations.

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The Homocides in the Amero Case

It is clear Amero is innocent of the charges of risk to minors in any way, shape, or form. These facts will surface in due time. The delusional death rattle of secret evidences, slander of Julie's name, and the scurrying of rats looking for shelter should not confuse anyone into believing that Amero is guilty.

And today, based on the thin evidence most media outlets have seen, Julie is being described as an incompetent teacher. In looking much deeper at some still to be made public documents and professional opinions, Julie's behavior in the classroom is more professional than the behavior of all of the peers who participated in her conviction. Julie did more, and heroically so, than any other person in that building - all of whom will live with this shame the rest of their lives.

Today when I think of incompetence I think about technical staff, the administrators, the school teachers, the police, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and the community at large. These are the players whose behavior and unconscionable negligence and indifference drains us all of our humanity.

In another blog, My Left Nutmeg, author Maura interviews Julie,

Julie's case really hit home with me, having taught in public schools for nearly a decade. I know that substitute teachers usually get no technology training at all. For the Norwich community to have overreacted so insanely over a handful of 7th graders seeing a few flashes of naked bodies on the screen of a computer that Julie had no responsibility for seems like a cartoonish modern day witch-hunt to me, fed by hysteria over risks to minors from the internet, widespread ignorance about technology, and sensationalism in the media about the handful of women teachers nationally who have been accused or convicted of having sex with students.

I spoke with Julie and Wes Volle, her husband, after I saw that someone had started a blog in her name. Wes and Julie confirmed that this site is legitimate and that they have started a legal defense fund for Julie. I invited Julie and Wes to live-blog with us here at MLN, which they agreed to do soon.

Talking with Julie, I found her version of events to be believable and heartwrenching. She and Wes hope to appeal her conviction, but are struggling just to pay their mortgage with their existing legal bills and Julie unable to work. They've contacted a number of attorneys about the case but have not yet found expert counsel willing to take the case pro bono or at any cost that would be affordable to them. At the end of our hour-long conversation, I attempted to lighten the mood by asking about her baby. After all, I had read in news and blog reports that she was pregnant at the time of the incident, and I assumed her baby would be one of few happy aspects of Julie's life.

Well, I really put my foot in it. Experiencing overwhelming stress after her arrest on felony charges, Julie miscarried. To make this tragedy even worse, Julie had been fighting infertility for years, and after investing thousands of dollars in fertility treatments, this was the only time Julie and Wes had succeeded in conceiving. Two years after losing that much-wanted pregnancy, Julie and Wes can barely afford to keep their home much less pay for fertility treatments. They have given up on their dream of children and are simply hoping to keep Julie out of prison in the short term and clear her record on appeal in the long term.

Raising awareness about Julie's case and her legal defense fund is one way we can help.

The loss of Julie's baby is a murder committed by professionals who don't deserve the privilege of being treated as such.

The inability of Wes and Julie to pay their bills robs us of good neighbors and healthy community.

The draining of their incomes and ability to save is the homicide of hope that some adoptable child has that a Wes and Julie can rescue them from a life of having no parents.

Make no mistake about it. This is a homocide that is killing all of us.

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Loonsbury and the Singularity of Science Fiction

The Amero case is the trial of this young century and it marks the end of an epoch journey where man searches for intelligent life elsewhere. The baton of that task is an unnecessary artifact of who we are today and not of who we are becoming.

A few weeks ago, when I still worked at ING I approached an executive who discussed everything but change and the future. I told him he needed to revolutionize the insurance industry by introducing life assurance policies rather than life insurance. Soon we will want policies that insure that our bodies and ourselves get the latest advancement in restoration of the self. We will die only by accident or by information osmosis.

Once you become familiar with the concept of the technological singularity such an idea has prosthetic legs. Life and death will take on different meanings very soon. But I'll save that discussion for another time.

My discussion today involves the intellectual meltdown of America. Our public school teachers are so technologically unsophisticated as to be barely qualified for what used to be third world countries. And our children's curriculum is so saturated with basics testing obsessions that our brightest students are being intellectually deformed and tortured from a lack of stimulus. In truth, every student and teacher is. Our schools need a visionary restructuring and it has to happen NOW. We are losing our future and that will be painful for us all and, yes, this is a crisis of the American Dream.

The public schools are to education what Guantanamo is to model prisons.

But it is not just the schools. Yesterday a group of security experts were pleading to buy an electronic copy of the Amero transcript. Electronic copies are searchable but the State of Connecticut mandates paper copies. I called to plead our good cause.

On the phone I contacted the transcriptionist's supervisor, Maura Simoneau who after some discussion agreed to put in a good word for us. But in exchange she asked that I advocate for better court technology. "In the early eighties we were the first ones using computers and technology but today we have ancient systems. These transcripts should be done in realtime. They can be shown in court on screens. We are just way behind."

Yes. The small town trial of Julie Amero in Norwich which is becoming jokingly referred to as Loonsbury is a microcosm of a national cancer - an overdose of the anti-intellectual policies of government that's killing our country. The sophistication of issues that the Amero case involves reporters must dumb down.

Julie Amero is the first high-profile evidence of something that is emerging in our Loonsbury flatland existence. That is the phenomenon that our information processing machines are behaving independent of the operator. This isn't news to everyone but it is an entirely new tsunami of relationships with machines that we have never seen before. The Amero trial is being treated like an episode of The Twilight Zone instead of AI. There's a reason for that. Too many people aren't intellectually ready for it and that's A BIG PROBLEM.

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The Ordeal of Judge Carmen Lopez

"And I think that the judge has an obligation, every judge, and now that I am one, I understand even more fully that a judge has an obligation to treat people with respect at all times. Canon three certainly dictates that." - Judge Hillary Stackbein


As I investigate more and more leads in the Julie Amero case, I also come across some of the most compelling stories concerning society and children. If you are wondering why prosecutors are allowed to run amok and why lawmakers are allowed to pass the most draconian and self-immolating morals legislation the world has ever seen, look no further.

Judge Carmen Lopez, an award winning judge, innovator in child custody cases, and inspirational figure in Connecticut Judicial service in 2004 was humiliated and had her professionalism questioned in a judicial inquest that will make you cry.

But this transcript also uncovers an simple truth about Judge Hillary Stackbein's confirmation to a judgeship. Remember, during the Amero case, witnesses report that Stackbein "sleeps" and makes faces at Julie's attorney Cocheo mocking his advanced state of MS symptoms.

It is her letter of complaint about Judge Carmen Lopez that creates the suspicions you are about to sample. A letter of complaint that is mysteriously absent from her confirmation hearing under dubious circumstances.

The plot, as they say, thickens.

Read it all here. The following is excepts from The JUD Committee Hearing transcript.

Senator Newton on Judge Carmen Lopez:

"--the only thing common Judge Lopez is guilty of is caring. This is the price she's paying for caring about an issue, children, which she should care about. Who better else to care than the Presiding Judge, the person that works there? If the conditions were bad enough, and she raised the concerns of caring about children, this is the price that we have to pay when we speak up and tell the truth.

I've taken a tour of that building along with Judge Lopez who invited the delegation to go look at it. It's unbelievable. Now, you know, I read this, and I listened to all the kinds of innuendos. I've known Carmen Lopez for over 20 years. When I was first elected President of City Council, she swore me in. I was there when she became a judge. Maybe it's a good thing I got on this committee because I'm not a lawyer or a judge, and I call a heart a heart. I won't say I call a spade a spade because I don't want you all to misinterpret that.

All I see here, and maybe I'm wrong, Mr. Chairman, is that she ruffled some feathers up on high. That is about how I see it. As a layperson who has no ax to grind one way or another, I would rather have a judge that's willing to speak up on conditions than just to sit back and collect a paycheck that allows situations and things to happen. So you have my full support.

JUDGE CARMEN LOPEZ: Thank you, Senator.

SEN. NEWTON: Because I know you as a person, I know your heart is about children. I'm kind of dismayed, Mr. Chairman, that she's under the scrutiny for doing one thing, caring about children. And I don't have any questions, but I wanted that for the record. Again, I'm honored to be on this committee, and I think it's a shame. I've spoken to the Chairman, my Chairman, and I said to him, point blank, and I want it for the record, she ruffled some feathers. In street terms, she pissed some people off.

But I don't think that we should, you know, take a good judge because she stood up to the system and take her to the coals for doing something that I would hope all judges do. That is stand up and be heard, and let us know, as the Legislature, when we can make a difference and step in and do something. So, Carmen, I'm sorry, Your Honor, I think the thing you did was you opened your mouth too much.

I think you did the right thing by speaking out because there are a lot of children in Mead Hall. You know, we had people standing outside in the rain because there wasn't enough room to house them in that courthouse. Because you spoke out, I think this is a retaliation, and I'll say it, for you standing up for what you believe in. Thank you, Mr. Chairman."

And Later Judge Lopez's character is tested in this exchange;

"SEN. MEYER: Did you, in the presence of this prosecutor, turn to defendants and say, in essence, that you would like to buy them Christmas presents because you have no children of your own?

JUDGE CARMEN LOPEZ: No. I can talk about what happened with that. I had one little boy--

SEN. MCDONALD: Judge Lopez, I'm sorry, could you--

JUDGE CARMEN LOPEZ: I had one little boy, Sir, that was coming before me every two weeks. He was this young, little, cute boy, and he wasn't there because he didn't have, he hadn't done anything. He was there because they couldn't find a place for him. Every two weeks, I had to look into the eyes of hits little black boy and tell him, don't worry. You're going to be coming out of detention.

They were trying to find a place for him. Then it came to be Christmas, and he had no one. He had no one to even visit him. I did. That is on the record. I could never deny that. I said, what would you like for Christmas? He said, a home. That is what he said to me. Yes, I said that, Sir, on the record.

SEN. MEYER: Well, that is a very compassionate thing to do, but I'm asking you within the context of being a judge in an adversary system, is that appropriate conduct? Is your mission in life, instead, something else, hat is not to be a judge and determiner, but instead to be a compassionate advocate and supporter? I'm suggesting to you that the case that is made out in this record before us indicates that you are a very compassionate advocate, but I think it raises a question within the adversarial system as to whether or not judicial conduct is your thing.

JUDGE CARMEN LOPEZ: I don't know, Sir. I'm a member of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. It is a national organization that promotes judges participating in communities. It promotes judges using the authority to convene communities to try to find solutions to the problems that are plaguing our society. So to the extent that that is not something that is acceptable in the State of Connecticut, I'm sorry.

I just believe that the courts, that the Judicial Branch is a part of the community. I believe that there are a lot of things that we can do. But in terms of compromising my ability to make decisions, no. No, Sir. My record for three and one-half years, I presided over cases involving termination of parental rights. Let me tell you, Sir, if I couldn't be neutral, if couldn't do the right thing, I would never terminate parental rights. I've done so many termination-of-parental-right cases. That is the equivalent of the death penalty. I've done that. I don't believe that one is there, Sir. I'll take a lot of the other ones, but not that one."

One of the more troubling and insightful passages is this;

"REP. GREEN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple questions, I guess, just to try to clarify for myself. Also, I'm going to try not to repeat things I've already heard. But not only the incident with the, with the cards and the visits with Judge Lopez in the detention, there appear to be some other indications in your letter that was third-hand information or hearsay. Is that correct? Particularly the one about the defendant told the police, go ahead, pile up as many charges, you didn't hear the defendant say that?

JUDGE HILLARY STACKBEIN: I had the written police report.

REP. GREEN: And the police indicated that the defendant said that.

JUDGE HILLARY STACKBEIN: That's correct.

REP. GREEN: Okay. And all police reports are accurate, so there's no question that the police in fact stated what was said and what's fact.

JUDGE HILLARY STACKBEIN: Well, I wouldn't say that. I would just say--

REP. GREEN: Oh, okay.

JUDGE HILLARY STACKBEIN: --why would the police have any reason to put those specific words, I'm buds with Judge Lopez? Why would they do that? How would they know anything about what happened in court regarding the Christmas presents?

REP. GREEN: So the police, the question about the Christmas presents was in a police report?

JUDGE HILLARY STACKBEIN: No. That's what I'm telling you. What happened with the respondent who Judge Lopez offered to buy Christmas presents, when he was subsequently arrested, said that to the police, you put any charges you want. I'm buds, buds in quotes, with Judge Lopez. That was in the police report. I had no reason to doubt that because I don't see where the police would come up with that particular language on their own.

REP. GREEN: I just want to be clear. But you indicated that you're not aware of Judge Lopez buying Christmas presents. You just heard her say that in the court.

JUDGE HILLARY STACKBEIN: That's correct. Offering.

REP. GREEN: You heard her offer that.

JUDGE HILLARY STACKBEIN: Yes. "

Stackbein unquestioningly defers to a police report for facts whose veracity are nothing more than the hearsay transcription of police officers. The larger exchange questions her use of investigative resources on Judge Lopez - something the questioners do not follow up on.

This pattern of deference appears again in the Amero case.

This article tells us what happened to Judge Carmen Lopez.

"For several years Judge Carmen Lopez worked in the Middletown court where the state's most serious child protection cases are sent. These are wrenching affairs in which people lose their parental rights after abusing or neglecting their kids often amidst addiction problems.

But Judge Lopez was sometimes able to manage them "therapeutically." That is, mediate all sides so that in the end the parents themselves feel they have "voluntarily" given up the child, smoothing the path for his adoption and retaining some dignity themselves. This creates a much healthier environment for the child because he feels supported all around.

Lopez' experience is so valued that she is often asked to teach her methods to other judges, just as she did last week in Puerto Rico. She holds many honors and is a board member of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

But there's a catch. Carmen Lopez is actually no longer a juvenile judge."

No. She's no longer serving the children she cared so much about. She's changing the diapers of corporations in court. Can our concern for the welfare of children sink any lower?

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More Porn in the Amero Case!

Just when you think the Julie Amero case has safely resolved itself as being the strangest case of community madness since the Salem Witch trials, it... gets even stranger.

There is a mounting body of suspicion that the computers of the Middle School where Julie Amero substituted were routinely commandeered by students who were far more sophisticated than the teaching staff and administration. And schools dependent solely on the single computer sitting on the teacher's desk become the sole obsession of students dying to participate in virtual activities they so enjoy at home.

Reports are that a student in Julie Amero's class emailed someone saying that Amero was looking at pornography during class. Yet where could the message have been sent from? The teacher's computer was locked in a blizzard of images Julie couldn't control. So that leaves two possibilities. One that the email was sent before the incident or after. And , even more perplexing, the student sending it would have to be computer savvy enough to know she wasn't passing time but furiously trying to stop the phenomenon. This doesn't pass the sniff test, does it?

And all kinds of teachers at the school allowed students to use their computers for whatever activity. Keep in mind - no firewall, no anti-spam, not much of any protection on these machines.

This all sounds like reasonable doubt. In fact more than reasonable doubt. A teacher who is put in danger, say sailing on a sinking boat trying to bail water as fast as possible is hardly creating risk of injury to minors involved in the event - the teacher is at risk as well!

So this introduces the issue of good judgment on the part of the police, prosecutor, and judge. Last night I received an email that dismays me in a hundred ways. It involves Detective Lounsbury's own adventures with girls just a few years older than the students in Julie Amero's classroom.

About six years ago, Lounsbury, his partner were on a police "sting operation". And what sting operation would be complete without beer and young girls packed in the back of your police van?

This report from WTNH news tells the less salacious details of the evening's activities.

A Norwich police detective has admitted to drinking beer while driving a minor around the city on a sting targeting alcohol sales to underage drinkers.

That's according to a report in today's Day of New London newspaper.

Detective Mark Lounsbury, who drove the police van used in the undercover sting operation on November 30th made the admission last week to Deputy Chief Warren Mocek, the newspaper reported.

Mocek is overseeing an investigation into a misconduct complaint against Lounsbury and Lieutenant James Daigle.

A 20-year-old woman claims Daigle photographed her topless while she was working for the department in the same sting operation.

Apparently, Lounsbury and his partner were forgiven for contributing to the delinquency of minors, driving intoxicated, generating pornographic materials and whatnot. Reasonable doubt is not required when none exists.

So Lounsbury at about that time became the department's cyber-crime expert. The Department snatching the keys to the department's love van away from him and giving him what they thought might be less tempting material to work with.

I'm okay with that. People often make mistakes that are out of character, or panic, or use poor judgment and we all need to forgive each other.

But my disappointment in these new revelations is not that Detective Lounsbury is a flawed character but that he exercises such poor judgment when it comes to others far more innocent than he was. And in his case he was a middle-aged man in a position of power and authority taking advantage of young women who may have been intoxicated. Is he now taking advantage of a community that knows less than he does about computers? Sadly, it's an important question that requires some thoughtful contemplation on the part of the community.

All of us who are trying to establish Julie's innocence are dumbfounded by the absence of mature, reasonable adults in Norwich. The schools, the town, and the judiciary need an intervention of sensibility because this new revelation is the tip of an even larger set of complications.

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Is the Prosecution Playing with Loaded Dice?

The Julie Amero case will be looked upon as a milestone in judicial history. The court system and lawmakers can no longer bury their heads in the sand when it comes to ubiquitous, open communication. And individuals must once again assume responsibility for managing their own moral concerns.

But the Julie Amero case also reminds us of how badly our justice system as deteriorated. A few days ago, I posted a blog that lamented the lack of pro bono lawyers who offered their services in the name of social justice causes. In the subsequent days I was educated as to the process that pro bono lawyers follow in offering their services to a client.

A key necessity for lawyers is the transcript of the trial proceedings. With a transcript in hand the lawyer can evaluate the worthiness of a case and petition to offer services based on their belief of the issues.

But the State of Connecticut seems to be maliciously slow in making these transcripts available. The by-product of this inexcusable phenomenon is that it is often too late for pro bono services to aid defendants who can benefit from them.

Secondly, trial transcriptions which are delayed can nullify the chances of receiving pro bono assistance and defendants can suffer double jeopardy in the form of stiffer and more damning sentences that later work to reinforce the guilty claim.

This imbalance may be subverting justice in even the most pedestrian of cases. And it is inexcusable. Computers and transcription systems are available that can remediate this situation. Connecticut needs to take a good, hard look at how justice is dispensed because the system looks to be unfairly administered in favor of prosecution. If such a bias holds true then we must stop teaching our children that we believe in fairness because we are not practicing it in the process.

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Porn Royalties at the Norwich Bulletin

No publication has pounded the proverbial table as hard as the Norwich Bulletin in insisting that Julie Amero was an agent of immoral and illegal behavior in the classroom. In news item after news item, she is treated like a social leper.

And because I've defended Julie, I try to keep abreast of what the Norwich Bulletin is saying about the case these days. I use two search words, "amero" and "porn". Last night nothing new appeared but what did appear surprised me.

The search for "porn" produced the Norwich Bulletin's own recommended product sponsors.

Under Local Web Info is an entry for a Bee Control Co. that offers "teen porn" and "school girl porn". To the right of that a Shop Local set of listings for United Porn products.

If you look further into the listings you'll find this interesting entry:

That's right. Ledyardchurch.com features "...porn pay-site reviews. Largest porn star buyer's guide.", and so on.

What this all means is the the hairstyling site Julie Amero stumbled into could very well have been one of the Norwich Bulletin's recommended vendors for all we know. And furthermore the Norwich Bulletin or a like merchant might have made money on the clicks.

Now, not for a moment do I believe Julie, The Bulletin, or a Ledyard Church are pushing porn knowingly. So why is Julie the only one convicted here.

This country has been ill-served by legislation that felonizes the possession of drugs or pornography near school buildings. In urban areas the results are disastrous. In the case of the Norwich Bulletin, a child that accesses porn while doing research on local issues in their newspaper and clicks on a church site that spews porn might automatically hold the newspaper liable on a morals charge.

And I'm guessing the newspaper would sing a very different tune if the shoe were on their foot.

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Julie Amero, Porn, and the Danger of Disney

"I ask this rhetorical question: Where does objectionable material come from - a site like Disney.com or the pornographic dot coms? Where do abusive JavaScript and Web Attacker kits reside?" - Detective Lounsbury, as reported at Network Performance Daily

It is predictably sad that Detective Lounsbury, the prosecutor, the defending attorney, the jury, the superintendent, and just about everyone involved in this case has no idea what they don't know. That's right. Unless they've been reading our content, they still don't know what they don't know.

Let's talk about it.

In a research project called Strider, Microsoft discovered this;

The Microsoft researchers found that Web sites aimed at kids were a regular target. Several variations of Disney Channel's "kimpossible.com" have been registered and all redirect to a parked anchor for the misspelled "disnryland.com." On that site, Google AdSense ads for adult content and pornography are being served.

The data from the Strider Typo-Patrol System also highlighted the use of typo-squatting in phishing attacks. Web sites belonging to Bank of America Corp., Barclays Bank PLC., Citigroup Inc. have all been targeted, with misspelled variations of domains pointing to fake banking sites with Google ads tailored to financial services.

Not only was Lounsbury wrong, he was LOUD wrong. But that's just the tip of a prosecution morals racket that puts every American at risk. That's right, when any jury in this country is shown the graphic content found on the accused's computer they are sickened. And rightly so. But what they don't realize is that their home computer may contain the same stuff. In fact the judge, jury, lawyers, reporters, and townsfolk may have that and worse.

Let's talk about "Bring Your Kids to Work Day". Lots of companies encourage this. They let little Dick and Jane sit at the company computers and surf. And the kids do. They spell and misspell all kinds of sites they love including Disney.

So what?

Read this testimonial from a private investigator endorsing ComputerCop Pro;

"My most recent case two weeks ago involved a publicly held corporation and $100 million. I was given search criteria by the client and uncovered hundreds of erased files including emails. As a result of the investigation, the CEO/president of the company was fired."

Wow!

Let's think about this. You or me, a teacher, priest, CEO, anybody can have their computer scanned and be prosecuted or fired or humiliated because their child visited Disney but typed it wrong!

You see, Julie Amero is no more responsible for what happened on an unprotected school computer than you or I are on our protected ones. Now that we all know this, there is no need for Det. Lounsbury to insist beyond credibility that Julie was porn surfing, or that the attorneys had a clue what the state of the computer was, or that the judge could smell the stench of the prosecutor's claims.

This is a mistrial and a tragic miscarriage of Justice. Everyone needs to admit it sooner than later.

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St. Jude asks Lady Justice to Dance

In the bit buckets of every classified ads section all over the world come small prayers to St Jude. Don't forget me. Help me stop falling. I just don't know anymore. Who should I trust?

Who are these people praying to? He's just that crazy wanderer that everybody complains about - some bleeding heart, weepy, pathetic bastard who every once in a while enters the shared subconscious of people who are always surprised to be invited to his narrative of social duty. No it's not an accidental iPod download and he doesn't let you shut it off. He's the original nag-ware.

Lately, he's been known to have been channeling Lenny Bruce in Berkley, and George Carlin in Cambridge, and Samuel Clemens in West Hartford. He's bumming spare cycles - he wants to exercise some dialogues this country hasn't heard in a long time. And he wants to talk about the difference between machines and humans.

On the street, the word is that he's dating Justice and she's asking him questions.

I'm blind-folded, what should I see?

When I look around I see lots of innocent people's lives being ruined. Where are the impartial judges? And where are the open-minded jurors? Look into to my mailbag and see Julie Amero.

She's been punished too much. This is not my work. But I can't dance unless I'm asked and her lawyer needs to accept assistance by reaching out to his peers.

Let me see if if can find someone to ask him to ask... I hear music in Norwich and I don't want to miss this dance.

Redemption comes to Norwich when the Norwich community begins to give Julie the social firewall she never had two years ago. She needs her friends and neighbors, and strangers to invite her into the social services community, into the warmth of a caring community, and into the hands of deserving salvation. It's never too late to ask or for people of conscience to invite.

Pro Bono This! - The Julie Amero Saga Continues

This travesty of justice has turned a corner in recent days and the wheels of a truer justice are turning.

John Dvorak has joined the chorus here.

I cannot think of a single reason this woman's trial should not be considered a mistrial immediately. This woman and her family and friends have suffered terribly under the burden of these scurrilous charges. But justice is coming... of that we can be sure.

However, last night I searched for pro bono legal aid for the Amero case. And I wound up at the American Bar Association web site. Woe, unto the needy searching for help. There are convicts in solitary confinement with more sophisticated web sites.

Actually, searching for "social justice" and "lawyer" and "pro bono" results in sites dedicated to the word "oxymoron". It is easier to find a covered wagon repairman than a social justice attorney in this country. The reason isn't hard to understand given the sentiment in the mass media about anyone claiming innocence. I'm old enough to remember fellows like Ramsey Clark, William Kunsler, and a handful of others.

In Region 19 our students are expected to do community service and they do. I'm talking about raising money, raising consciousness, and doing good deeds.

Pro bono volunteers don't seem to have that same connection to community. You see just because politicians like Lieberman can reduce Connecticut's ROI to 49 of 50 states doesn't mean we don't have a need. You see if Connecticut's pro bono lawyers ever rediscover social justice the schools in Hartford, Norwich, New Haven, Bridgeport, and all over the rest of Connecticut would be getting attention instead of neglect.

But I'm tired tonight so I'll stop preaching.