Dec 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday urged a federal appeals court in Boston to break new ground by holding that a defendant’s conviction outlasts his death and does not get wiped away just because he died before his appeal could be heard, in a case involving a former biotech chief executive’s securities fraud conviction.
Prosecutors in making that argument to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that every other federal appeals court would under their precedents vacate former PixarBio Corp CEO Frank Reynolds’ conviction following his 2022 death.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Quinlivan told the three-judge panel the practice had no constitutional basis and was inconsistent with statutes like the Victims Rights Act aimed at protecting victims and holding those who wronged them accountable.
“It really is a slap in the face to the victims of a crime and their loved ones because it tells them that they are unimportant and indeed irrelevant in the eyes of the law,” Quinlivan said.
Reynolds was found guilty in 2019 by a federal jury of carrying out a scheme to mislead investors into believing he was a successful inventor with a drug in development that would end opioid addiction.
But prosecutors said the claims he made about himself, the drug and its regulatory approval timeline were overhyped and untrue and his goal was to defraud investors out of their money, pump up the value of his company’s stock and get rich in the process.
Reynolds was sentenced in 2020 to seven years in prison and ordered to forfeit $280,000 and pay about $7.5 million in restitution to his victims. When he died mid-appeal, prosecutors asked the 1st Circuit to not vacate his conviction.
The other 11 regional appeals courts have adopted a legal doctrine under the common law known as “abatement ab initio,” in which trial convictions are vacated when a defendant dies before he or she can exhaust their appeals.
U.S. Circuit Judge William Kayatta said prosecutors needed “a pretty good argument to upset an apple cart that is going uniformly across the country without any sign of being a big problem.”
But Quinlivan noted a growing number of states (31) have in recent years abandoned the practice of vacating convictions at the state court level for defendants who died during appeals.
Quinlivan said vacating a deceased defendant’s convictions also means wiping out financial penalties imposed at a defendant’s sentencing, including restitution ordered to compensate those victims.
U.S. Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, though, noted the Justice Department can in that instance bring a civil case against a defendant’s estate, a route that would allow family members a fair chance to contest any restitution.
“Even though there’s been a conviction, until that conviction has been fully reviewed for error, then it shouldn’t count as a final judgment,” she said.
Judith Mizner, a federal public defender appointed after Reynolds died by the 1st Circuit to argue in favor of vacating convictions, said the doctrine respected the fundamental role appeals play in ensuring a conviction was just.
“It is a fundamental part of our criminal justice system,” she said.
The case is United States v. Reynolds, 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 20-1268.
For the United States: Mark Quinlivan of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts
For the opposing side: Judith Mizner of the Federal Defender Office
Read more:
Former PixarBio CEO convicted of defrauding biotech investors
Biotech CEO, two associates accused by U.S. of securities fraud
Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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