As you can imagine, I’m very pleased at the outcome of Julie Amero’s sentencing today. However, there’s still the specter of a new trial and so the show isn’t over yet.
This event was a testament to the power of a community of people coming together in a common cause.
One day, perhaps someone will write a story of this experience. It’s certainly been one of the more amazing events in my career.
Right now, because the case is going to a new trial, I still can’t discuss much of the case publicly.
It should be noted that there was a tremendous amount of work done by the forensic team that worked on this case with me on a completely pro bono basis. (The forensic team was provided a copy of the hard drive in question and performed a detailed examination for the defense, comparing what was found on the drive against the trial testimony.). This team included Glenn S. Dardick, Ph.D., Eric Sites (Sunbelt Software), Robin Stuart, Alex Shipp (MessageLabs), Joel Folkerts, and Joe Stewart (SecureWorks). They deserve so much credit for the technical work done for the defense.
There was also a vast amount of work done by others. I don’t like thank-you lists, because inevitably, someone important gets left out, But here’s a start: Walter Hooper, who started the fire in support of Julie and should be credited for much of this effort; Herb Horner, the defense expert witness, who never backed down; Nancy Willard, who rallied relentlessly to Julie’s side; Frank Krasicki, PC World’s Steve Bass, Brian Boyko, Lindsay Beyerstein, Brian Krebs of the Washington Post, and the Hartford Courant’s Rick Green, all of whom advocated for Julie publicly and brought her situation to the attention of millions; Eric Howes, who got this case to the attention of some very important people; Randy Abrams at Eset Labs; Merja Lehtinen, the “other” substitute teacher in the school that fateful day, who continued to rally to Julie’s cause; Ari Schwartz at the CDT for making important introductions; the many computer science professors who, out of their own funds, took out a full-page advertisement in Norwich’s newspaper in support of a re-examination of the technical details of the case; the many people who gave Julie and Wes critical morale encouragement, financial assistance, advice and support; and the many, many bloggers and journalists who covered this case and brought it to the public’s attention. And to anyone I’ve missed, you know who you are and your efforts are genuinely appreciated. (I’m blogging on the show floor at TechEd and doing the best I can here.)
And, of course, there’s the defense team, composed of William Dow, Clint Roberts and a whole background cast. There’s a whole story there too, but for now, many of the lawyers who worked on this case choose to remain Fabian for now. Let me just say this: Julie had some of the best legal minds available working on her case – a real “dream-team”.
For now, I’m just happy that Julie has been given a second chance to prove her case.
Alex Eckelberry