Who is a Juvenile?
Under the Act, a “juvenile” is a person who has not yet reached the age of eighteen at the time of the commission of the offense and is under twenty one as of the time of the filing of formal juvenile charges. See 18 U.S.C. ยง 5031. Thus, 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; the juvenile delinquency proceedings do not apply at all. This is true even where the government could have charged the juvenile prior to his twenty-first birthday but did not. See In re Jack Glenn Martin, 788 F.2d 696, 698 (11th Cir. 1986) (determinative date is date of filing of formal indictment or information, fact that Government could have brought charges against defendant prior to his twenty-first birthday held to be “irrelevant”); see also United States v. Hoo, 825 F.2d 667 (2d Cir. 1987) (absent improper delay by government, age at time of filing of formal charges determines whether the Ac
