When Ken Lay died, he had already been found guilty of the charges against him for his role in the Enron debacle… but his lawyers had not yet started the appeals process.
This brought up an interesting legal precedent: because Lay’s full range of legal options (via the appellate system) hadn’t been exhausted, his conviction would be thrown out:
By law, Lay had a constitutional right to participate in his criminal appeal. And since he’s no longer alive to help his attorneys prepare, the case will be “extinguished” — as if it never happened, explains Houston attorney Joel Androphy, author of the textbook White Collar Crime. “It’s as if he was never charged and convicted,” says Androphy. “This is the law. There may have been a moral victory for the government, but there’s no longer a legal victory.”
As if it never happened? Maybe not:
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Prosecutors asked a federal judge on Wednesday to hold off wiping late Enron founder Ken Lay’s fraud and conspiracy convictions from the books until Congress can consider a U.S. Justice Department proposal to take such power away from the courts.
According to a motion filed with U.S. Judge Sim Lake, the Justice Department on Tuesday asked Congress to pass a law that would prevent judges from vacating convictions, which could happen in Lay’s case because he died after being found guilty but before he could appeal his convictions.
On the face of this, I agree. If someone was found guilty, but then dies, it seems bizarre to pretend the prior conviction never happened… and in the case of Enron, there are enormous financial stakes, and many victims.
“The doctrine as applied in many federal courts directly and unnecessarily harms crime victims,” chief Enron prosecutor Sean Berkowitz and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hueston wrote in the motion.
“It erases the hard-won verdicts against those who have wronged them, verdicts that might aid crime victims in civil litigation,” Berkowitz and Hueston wrote.
But to pass legislation to apply retroactively? Can they even do that?