Abatementab initio (Latin for "from the beginning") is acommon lawlegal doctrine that states that the death of a defendant who is appealing a criminalconviction extinguishes all criminal proceedings initiated against that defendant from indictment through conviction. Abatementab initio was the subject of twoUnited States Supreme Court decisions,Durham v. United States (1971) andDove v. United States (1976). The former extended the doctrine to cases wherecertiorari was pending and not yet granted, and the latter excludeddiscretionary appeals.[1]
Abatementab initio was used in federal court to overturn the conviction ofEnron CEOKenneth Lay.[2] In the state ofMassachusetts, it was used to overturn the convictions ofJohn Salvi andAaron Hernandez, both convicted of murder. In the latter case, however, the state appealed the decision; in March 2019 theMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reinstated Hernandez's conviction and ended the use of the doctrine in Massachusetts.[3] The ruling held that the defendant's death rendered the appealmoot; it also held that trial records should indicate that such convictions were "neither affirmed nor reversed".[4]
In instances where the doctrine is applied, a legal issue emerges concerning previous rulings or actions made. An example is the case ofAaron Hernandez's conviction forOdin Lloyd's murder. Due to the principle of abatementab initio, his conviction was initially rendered void before the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled to abolish abatementab initio (see above). It was thus argued that, since he was cleared of every murder he was accused of, Hernandez's family was entitled to the money that theNew England Patriots refused to pay after it voided his contract on account of Lloyd's murder.[5][2] In 2016, when the court posthumously cleared Kenneth Lay's Enron-relatedfraud convictions, the compensation for defrauded victims was also lost.[1] A ruling involving asset forfeiture law in the United States held that if an offender satisfied a forfeiture judgment, the government is never required by the principle to return fines that were already paid.[6]
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