Comment by judge2020
4 years ago
It can get pretty messy. For example, they could wait until they're 21 to try them as an adult, even if it was committed at 17 or younger [0 p. 128]:
> a person who committed the offense before his eighteenth birthday, but is over twenty-one on the date formal charges are filed, may be prosecuted as an adult.... This is true even where the government could have charged the juvenile prior to his twenty-first birthday, but did not.
However, the statute of limitations for CFAA violations is 2 years [1 p. 2] so this might not apply. If somehow they can still go after him at 21, this post could play a part in evidence for performing the hack (I truly hope not).
0: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-ccips/l...
1: https://www.goodwinlaw.com/-/media/files/publications/10_01-...
The newest policy is to charge minors as adults unless there's a compelling and beneficial reason not to. I think that was a DOJ change around 2009. Not sure how many states followed suit. But in general, its increasingly likely that minors are being charged as adults.