OLYMPIA – Convictions will no longer disappear simply because a defendant dies during appeal, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The decision scraps a nearly century-old legal rule called “abatement,” which wipes out convictions and legal debts when a person dies before exhausting their appeals.
Abatement originally was meant to keep a convict’s heirs from inheriting legal debts. But the high court said the doctrine conflicts with newer laws that emphasize victims’ rights and cut off the presumption of innocence after conviction.
The same legal principle still exists in other courts. It’s an issue in the case of Ken Lay, the Enron Corp. founder whose federal conviction on fraud and other charges has been questioned because of his death.
Thursday’s state Supreme Court ruling centered on the case of Jules Devin, who was found guilty of shooting his daughter-in-law in the face but had the verdict wiped out when he died while seeking an appeal.
The court reinstated Devin’s conviction, saying the abatement rule shouldn’t apply because Devin didn’t file an appeal notice on time.
But the majority went further, erasing the abatement doctrine altogether over objections from Justice Richard Sanders.
Majority justices said the early 20th century aim of shielding innocent heirs from legal debt shouldn’t apply to modern orders for victims’ compensation.
By deleting such payments to victims, the abatement rule “threatens to deprive victims of restitution that is supposed to compensate them for losses caused by criminals,” Chief Justice Gerry Alexander wrote for the court.
“If our state’s goal is to ward off potential harm to innocent people, it makes no sense to protect the heirs of criminals but not their victims,” the majority said.
The state retains the ability to hear the appeals of dead people, and may decide not to collect legal fines that would unfairly burden a convict’s heir.
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