For now, 17-year-old Zechariah J. McGrady is an adult in the eyes of the criminal justice system.

The boy and his brother, Jeremiah B. McGrady, 19, both of Fairview Township, are charged in a weekend home invasion in Karns City that left the homeowner with life-threatening knife wounds.

The siblings, state police said, attacked 34-year-old Adam Bell after breaking into his Olive Street house early Saturday morning.

Jeremiah McGrady is in the Butler County Prison on a six-figure bail. His younger brother is at the Jefferson County Juvenile Detention Center in Ohio.

Both brothers are charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, theft, simple assault and reckless endangerment.

But even though he is in juvenile lockup, Zechariah McGrady is in adult criminal court.

Under Pennsylvania law, anyone 15 years or older at the time he is accused of committing a certain serious crime, during which a deadly weapon is used, is immediately charged as an adult.

Among those offenses are attempted homicide and robbery.

But state law also allows any child defendant to ask to have his case transferred to juvenile court, where the court cannot hold him beyond his 21st birthday and where rehabilitation, not punishment, is the overriding goal.

It is not known if Zechariah, who turns 18 on Nov. 6, has an attorney. It would be up to his attorney to file a decertification petition in county court which, if approved, would transfer Zechariah’s case to juvenile court.

Police accused Zechariah McGrady of pulling an Airsoft pistol on Bell during the home invasion. Later, Jeremiah McGrady allegedly pulled out a large knife and stabbed Bell several times.

Bell was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital where he underwent a five-hour surgery Saturday to repair severed arteries. His condition was not known this morning.

Police arrested the McGrady brothers on Sunday, after both confessed to the crimes during interviews with investigators, court documents said.

Preliminary hearings for both are set for 1 p.m. Tuesday at the office of District Judge Lewis Stoughton in Chicora.

Should Zechariah be ordered held for trial at the hearing, prosecutors could ask county President Judge Thomas Doerr to have the boy placed in the county prison.

“We haven’t decided anything at this point,” county District Attorney Richard Goldinger said Tuesday. “Once the case is through the preliminary hearing, we’ll take a look at it.

“The main thing right now is that we know where he is.”