Government will oppose request to vacate Lay's conviction

And the Enron legal saga goes on: A day after we learned that Judge Sim Lake approved a request from Lay's lawyers to substitute Lay's estate for Lay in court proceedings, the first step toward vacating the dead former Enron leader's conviction on fraud and conspiracy charges, Lay's estate attorneys filed a request today to erase the convictions and dismiss the indictment against Lay. But it looks like prosecutors aren't going to take that lying down: The filing included a sentence that said Lay's lawyer, Michael Ramsey, had "conferred with [prosecutor] Kathy Ruemmler, who indicated the government will oppose this motion."

Lay's legal team, of course, wants to have the conviction vacated because Lay is dead — they cited a 2004 5th Circuit Court ruling that found a defendant's death overturned his entire case because the defendant didn't have a chance to challenge his conviction. The same situation applies to Lay, they say, who died of a massive heart attack before he could appeal. The benefit of vacating the conviction, of course, lies with Lay's wife, Linda, who got everything in Lay's will: No conviction means the government wouldn have more trouble seizing what it says is $43.5 million in Lay's ill-gotten gains. (Even with a vacation, though, the government could still get those millions — it also has a plan to get ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling to turn over Lay's share, too.)

Justice Department spokesman Brian Sierra said prosecutors' response will come in future filings.