The prosecution, on the other hand, said Amero loaded the porn deliberately, and faulted her for not shutting the computer off fast enough once the children had witnessed it. Since the conviction a legion of security experts have sided with Amero. They say the jury's lack of understanding of computer security technology blinded them to the presence of adware, which Amero - a computer novice - could not control.

She was originally scheduled to be sentenced on Friday in the US, but this was postponed to March 29 to allow her to beef up her defence team. Meanwhile, security researchers at a Florida-based anti-spyware firm have pledged to get to the bottom of the mystery by conducting their own investigation, SecurityFocus.com reported. Alex Eckelberry, president of Sunbelt Software, reportedly obtained an "image" of the contents of the computer's hard disk drive. Earlier this month, he put out a call to the security and forensics community for help in analysing the image.

The goal was to determine whether the porn pop-ups were deliberately loaded by Amero, or if they were caused by spyware. Eckelberry, along with other security experts, dismissed the police and prosecutor's claims that a forensic investigation of the computer showed the teacher was actively browsing porn websites the entire day on October 19, 2004, the same day she was accused of displaying porn to her students.

Amero's husband, Wes Volle, wrote on his "Julie Amero Defense Fund" blog that his wife was tried unfairly. "The court opted to deny / prevent the defense from presenting evidence to rebut the evidence introduced by the state," Volle said. "The states assertion of a deliberate attempt to access pornographic web sites can only be deemed as persecution of a political nature."

Volle added that two independent forensic investigations had concluded that malicious code had caused the pop-ups, not a deliberate act by Amero. In another blog post, the director of technical education at security software maker ESET, Randy Abrams, posed the question: "Can a legal system unversed in technology result in a fair trial."

He said the prosecution's "expert witness", who presented evidence against Amero at the trial, was incompetent. "The prosecutor in this case, David Smith hired a police detective who was entirely unqualified to investigate the case and incapable, through intent or ignorance, of sticking to factual testimony," Abrams wrote. "The jury was told that Amero had to have clicked on links when there was absolutely no evidence to support the conclusion."

Amero now has a new attorney - criminal defence lawyer William Dow - who has offered to defend her for free and will reportedly pursue an appeal.