Looks like I mixed up two different cases- the cause of one, and the duration of another.

weev (who apparently is a giant asshole) was the one who got sent to jail for accessing a completely public URL AT&T wished he didn't in 2010. The EFF took up his case. His sentence was later vacated by another court because so many civil rights lawyers kept joining his team pro-bono so the court tossed it out on a blatant technicality to get the issue to go away, so he only served ~2y.

As for the CFAA being used to slap people with life sentences, there's too many examples to know which one I was mixing it up with. Aaron Swartz is the classic example.