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Originally Posted by politicophile
"Willful or unlawful" behavior is defined as "the conduct of a person that is deliberately indifferent to, acquiesces in, or creates a situation inimical to the child's moral or physical welfare".
"'Wilfully' means intentionally or deliberately. 'Unlawfully' means without legal right or justification. Causing or permitting a situation to arise within the meaning of this statute requires conduct on the part of the defendant that brings about or permits that situation to arise when the defendant had such control or right of control over the child that the defendant might have reasonably prevented it."
Since the phrase is "willfully or unlawfully", the government needs prove only one of the two beyond a reasonable doubt. To me, Amero's negligent behavior qualifies as "the conduct of a person that... creates a situation inimical to the child's moral... welfare." Also, that last part, "that the defendant might have reasonably prevented [the bad situation]", certainly rings true in my opinion.
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By definition, negligent conduct cannot be willful conduct, as any first year law student will be happy to tell you after taking crim and torts. Negligence MEANS that you didn't intend to do it, but you didn't behave as a reasonable prudent person and, thus, are responsible for the injury you caused even though you didn't mean to do it. Which says nothing for the fact that negligence is almost NEVER enough to get you sentenced at the criminal level. Criminal codes almost universally require mens rea or at most recklessness. Jailing someone for negligence, for good reason, is viewed as very extreme.
That being said, I'm not at all sure that-had everyone not been looking to crucify her-she would be even proven to have been negligent. The other teacher expressly forbid her from turning off the computer AND she was in a very delicate situation. I would be 99/100 people would've freaked out and not known what to do if porn pop ups flooded an unfamiliar computer in front of a bunch of kids. Violating a specific instruction doesn't seem very reasonable and panicking does seem very reasonable.
Everything in this case stinks of scapegoating the person with the least power and bureaucratic ability to cover her tracks. Hopefully it gets appealed and tossed out for the shit decision it is. Otherwise, tally another one up for a broken legal system.