Lay to Rest
Posted July 13th, 2006 by Chip Bok
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A memorial service was held for Ken Lay yesterday in Houston, the same city where he was convicted 6 weeks ago. He insisted on his innocence then. Evidently he's had the last word.
If a defendant dies in Texas before he can appeal his conviction the verdict is dismissed. Ken Lay is a free man now, in more ways than one according to Bloomberg columnist, Ann Woolner.
"And so, Lay's death erases the criminal conviction that it
took the federal government 4½ years to win… The principle is called "abatement ab initio," the Latin
portion meaning "from the beginning." … So when it comes to Lay, it's as if the Justice Department
never established a special Enron Task Force, never deployed
armies of lawyers and agents to determine his role in Enron's
collapse, never strong-armed Enron employees to give evidence,
never won an indictment, and, finally, never spent months
persuading a jury to convict him."
