Kenneth Lay’s Conviction Revoked

Because he’s dead.

Legal analysts said Lake's ruling closely hewed to a long-held doctrine called abatement, which allows a conviction to be vacated if defendants die before they are able to exercise their right to appeal. Courts typically rule that defendants' constitutional rights to challenge their convictions outweigh other considerations, and the law hesitates to punish the dead, the analysts said.

This means the nearly $44 million the government was trying to recover from his estate, to begin to make amends to the people who were collectively screwed by his criminal mischief to the tune of billions of dollars, will now probably never be collected.