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....when a defendant who pleaded not guilty dies before sentencing, as Lay did, in most cases the conviction is wiped out on the grounds that the defendant did not have the opportunity to appeal, legal experts said.
"Fifth Circuit law in particular is clear on this point," Stanford University law professor Robert Weisberg said Wednesday, referring to the federal region that includes Houston.
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Only last week, federal prosecutors filed a motion with the Houston trial court seeking to recover $43.5 million that they said Lay had illegally obtained through Enron bonuses and a line of credit extended by the Houston energy company. Weisberg and other experts said that Lay's death might pose obstacles to that effort but that they expected the government to pursue restitution.
"I foresee them fighting tooth and nail," Houston lawyer Philip H. Hilder said.
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Lay's death will have little effect on the pending civil fraud lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, or on the massive consolidated lawsuit brought by former Enron employees and shareholders, scheduled for trial in Houston on Oct. 16, said Patrick J. Coughlin of San Diego law firm Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, lead counsel in the case.
Coughlin said the main thrust of the case was to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars of additional compensation from the large banks and investment firms that remain defendants. Any assets retained by individual defendants such as Lay and Skilling were too small to make a material dent,
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