Here's one example: https://www.wired.com/2013/03/att-hacker-gets-3-years/

>The two essentially wrote a program to send GET requests to [publicly available pages on] the web site.

Ruling was appealed and deemed incorrect: https://www.wired.com/2014/04/att-hacker-conviction-vacated/

Not quite, it was vacated on the grounds of improper venue. It wasn't reversed or similar; to be vacated is to be voided, as though the case never occurred.

I mean yes. I wish it was actually reversed on grounds that the ruling didn't stand. But that was the intention of the appeal. Dismissing it on improper venue is simply tactical. This is the legal system's way of saying, "there was enough contention in this case that we don't feel comfortable with the whole thing in the first place so we'll throw it out on a technicality and avoid inventing any case law here".

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not 100% sure if thats's the best interpretation. It being thrown out on a technicality doesn't necessarily imply anything about their feelings regarding the facts of the case.

Basically, I would not be surprised that if the exact same case happened today, the defendants would still get jail time.