I'm assuming they're going to just let this die, now, and release weev, and not try again against him.
This avoids any serious ruling about CFAA, and preserves the arbitrarily-expansive reading of CFAA to use against other victims. They've already ruined weev's life sufficiently for their purposes.
Didn't their most important charge rely on the "in the commission of a felony" accelerator? Didn't that felony rely on NJ state law? Didn't this case just limit their ability to pull the laws of arbitrary states out of their asses for making similar claims in the future?
True. (although they can probably find other felonies to invoke, and maybe there will be an effort to get more state to adopt whacko versions of CFAA...)
I'm fairly certain that this would be a clear application of Double Jeopardy clause of the 5th Amendment for at least the majority of charges; in short, this is true because whether or not the case had merit, the prosecution definitely screwed up the proceeding.
There may have been a case for CFAA violation (right or wrong), but the prosecutors improperly chose New Jersey as the venue of proceedings. This was a calculated move that had the effect of producing additional state charges, which then resulted in an increased Federal charge for CFAA + State Law violations. That sort of willful "venue shopping" cuts both ways, then; as soon as they try for additional charges, prosecutors now had to conclusively prove that the location of venue was material to the crime at hand, as well as the actions committed.
Since Weev &co were not in NJ at the time the act occurred, and neither were the machines they accessed, and there's no conclusive proof of NJ residents being harmed, then the venue of crime committed was incorrect and thus so were the additional charges hung on it. And that is the prosecutorial misstep which was overturned on this appeal, which is subject to jeopardy limitations.
When a conviction is vacated (as was the case here) it does not violate the double jeopardy clause to try the accused again for the charge for which he was convicted.
The case on point is United States v. Ball, 163 U.S. 662 (1896)* which rejects the English common law rule that holds the opposite. Frankfurter's dissent in Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184 (1957)+ is far easier to read and lays out the history well.
If they did, and he was convicted again, would his time served on the vacated conviction be discounted off any sentence? It would seem highly unjust if not.
Under these facts (the prosecution theory was a stretch that they don't want tested; the original conviction was caused in part by the defendant's stupid behavior during the first trial; the defendant already served time; the New Jersey federal prosecutors who brought the case can't do it again) the government is very likely to back off.
Has anyone made any actual statements one way or the other on the possibility of re-prosecution in a different venue? I agree with your guess, but one never knows.
To a degree. This only applies for being tried in NJ for the same crime. They're free to charge him in other states and try him without double jeopardy applying:
"But if a single act violates the law of two states, the law treats the act as separate offenses and thus not in conflict with the Double Jeopardy Clause. A second state with a case against a defendant may decide that a conviction in the first state is sufficient, so it does not necessarily mean more than one state will bring charges. Therefore, it is up to the discretion of the particular prosecutor, as with other criminal cases."
This is known as the Dual Sovereignty Doctrine. This is also what makes hacking such a perilous crime. If you're hacking a large corporation in one state, you may have victims in multiple states. Thus, you can be tried separately for essentially the same crime in multiple states regardless of being acquitted in other states.
> To a degree. This only applies for being tried in NJ for the same crime.
No, because this wasn't a prosecution under NJ law, it was a prosecution under federal law, in which the violation of NJ was an element of the offense. So double jeopardy prevents any further federal prosecution for the same offense, but doesn't prevent prosecution under state law of NJ or other states (even though the court here found NJ law did not apply, federal circuit court precedent on state law questions is not binding on state courts.)
Yes, double jeopardy only applies if a criminal trial concluded with an acquittal. In that case the defendant can't be charged a second time. But with cases that basically didn't conclude either way, non-convictions that are also non-acquittals, such as mistrials, vacated convictions, cases thrown out for procedural reasons, etc., the government is free to bring the charges again, on the theory that the first "jeopardy" hasn't really concluded properly, with either an acquittal or a conviction. For example, a case that ends in a hung jury can be re-tried with a new jury; a case thrown out for improper venue can be re-charged in proper venue; a conviction thrown out for ineffective assistance of counsel can be re-tried with better counsel; etc.
I wondered why they couldn't use the (relatively small amount of) drugs they found when they raided him in Arkansas to, under Arkansas state law, fuck him somehow.
This avoids any serious ruling about CFAA, and preserves the arbitrarily-expansive reading of CFAA to use against other victims. They've already ruined weev's life sufficiently for their purposes.