A 16-year-old Florida boy appeared Friday at a closed-door federal court hearing in Miami on charges related to the death of his stepsister on a Carnival cruise ship in November.
But his case and the proceedings will remain sealed from public view because the defendant is a juvenile, unless prosecutors seek and obtain a judge’s approval to try him as an adult. That designation would open the case.
The unidentified teenage boy, who appeared alongside a federal public defender before Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres, was later taken to the court’s probation office and processed for pretrial release, according to NBC 6 South Florida. The federal charges were unknown because his case remained under seal, with no visible docket record…