US teacher jailed for showing school class violent movie

A court has ordered the jailing of 58-year-old Ohio teacher Sheila Kearns for showing to her high school class the film ‘The ABCs of Death,’ which has received a rating of 4.7 by the Internet Movies Database, or IMDb. INTERNET SCREENGRAB

COLUMBUS, Ohio, United States — A former teacher convicted of showing a movie including graphic sex and violence to a high school class was sentenced on Wednesday to 90 days in jail.

Sheila Kearns, a substitute teacher who was convicted in January of four felony counts, apologized in court, saying she hadn’t watched the movie before showing it to her Spanish classes at Columbus’ East High School in April 2013.

The movie, “The ABCs of Death,” consists of 26 chapters, each depicting some form of grisly death and representing a letter of the alphabet, such as “E is for Exterminate,” ”O is for Orgasm” and “T is for Toilet.”

Kearns, 58, was convicted of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. The Columbus Dispatch (https://bit.ly/1M7CFUc) reported the judge placed her on probation for three years but made the jail time a condition of probation.

Kearns contended she was unaware of the movie’s content. Her attorney said she never would have knowingly showed it.

But a student testified Kearns had watched the 129-minute movie. The student said the movie was “disturbing” and said students in the class went “crazy” while watching it.

An assistant principal who saw the DVD movie playing in the classroom confiscated it.

Prosecutors said the movie’s title should have tipped off Kearns that she should check it out before showing it to her students, who ranged in age from 14 to 18.

Jurors watched the movie, which rates 4.7 out of 10 stars on the IMDb website, before convicting Kearns.