If someone is going thru a trial for something (let's just say murder) and that person dies before the trial is over, what happens? Does the trial keep going? Is he/she still sentenced so that it'll go on record?

Also, what happens if someone dies before they find out that they did it? Would they have a trial then?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,

well Puppy I actually asked my brother this question hes a lawyer and he said no. He said hes never had this happen to him but, if it did he would not have anyone to try so there would be no trial.

No, no trial....would present a major 6th Amendment problem....hard to allow a dead guy to confront his accusers, or to hear the evidence against him (unless Jonathon Edwards is available to act as a "Friend of the Court"). Trials conducted "in absentia" are different, because by having fled, the accused can be presumed to have waived his/her Sixth Amendment rights.

What about a money suit?

[A lawyer writes]

By reading this you agree to be bound by my terms and conditions commencing 'This post is fictional and any resemblance to any person living....' passing through references to writs of general gaol delivery and a sanity clause [case cited: re an opera ex parte Marx ( C) and another ( 1935)at p.137 letter A 'There ain't no such thing as Sanity Clause' ]
In England when the accused dies whether before or after the start of the trial 1) evidence is formally adduced to prove it and 2) the Indictment is endorsed with the finding that the Defendant is dead and the ruling that 'the Indictment is of no legal effect'. Where there has been a jury sworn it is formally discharged from returning any verdict. Rather quaintly Mr Justice Chapman made such a direction in 1978 adding mysteriously 'and that the file [court not police file] be closed unless and until the Court on cause being shown otherwise orders' . Now I cannot imagine what 'cause' there could be , short of the defendant miraculously being raised from the dead or a world record mistake (Just how wrong can the doctor and the police officer be ?) Still it's good to know that our judges think of everything !

LOL Thanks Fredpuli!! That was a great answer, and I totally understood it!

I know of people who sued over a medication error after the doctors death. They got money from his estate.

A judge just vacated the decision against Ken Lay because he died before being sentenced, thus depriving him the chance to appeal. Essentially, this means that, unless his estate is sued by the shareholder of Enron, his family gets to keep the money that he was convicted of gaining by illegal methods.

Federal Judge Sim Lake, who presided over Lay and co-defendant Jeffrey Skilling's criminal trial earlier this year, cited a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that any defendant that dies before sentencing is robbed of an opportunity to appeal his conviction.
Lake's ruling, widely expected given the legal precedent, backs a petition filed by Lay's lawyers two months ago seeking to clear his name. It also hampers federal prosecutors' efforts to wrest any of Lay's ill-gotten gains from his estate.