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Doubt it all you want. Its over, and Lay's money cant be touched

Yes I will...I'm sure there are tons of legal arguments that it is NOT Lay's money, and by extension therefore his heirs won't get to keep it.

Maybe I'm just a common sense kinda guy. I'd make a lousy attorney.

The heirs didn't do anything. They wont be held accountable for Lay's misdeeds. No doubt any arguments to the contrary were anticipated and dealt with through his financial arrangements. It will be a dry hole for civil suits.

You are probably correct in that the legal challenges will continue for some time.

Lay death makes money claim moot: lawyers

By Matt Daily Wed Jul 5, 8:17 PM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Ken Lay's sudden death on Wednesday will scuttle U.S. prosecutors bid to seize $43.5 million they charged the former chief executive earned through illegal acts at Enron Corp., legal experts said.
"Because of what's happened to Ken Lay, everything has been extinguished," said Joel Androphy, a partner at law firm Berg & Androphy who has closely followed the case.
However, claims filed by shareholders against Lay and other senior Enron executives in a civil case can proceed, the lawyers said. [bold my emphasis]
Lay, 64, died of coronary artery disease early on Wednesday in Colorado, just six weeks after a jury convicted him and former chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling of conspiracy and fraud in the collapse of Enron into bankruptcy in 2001.
The U.S. Justice Department's Enron Taskforce filed a motion on Friday asking U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake to force Lay to pay $43.5 million and Skilling to pay $139.3 million.
Under precedents set by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, a defendant is not technically ruled guilty until the person has been sentenced and has exhausted the appeals process, lawyers said.
Since Lay died before his sentencing and appeal, the conviction does not stand, and the financial claim by the government will not proceed, they said.
"I think it's pretty clear the conviction will be abated," Michael Wynne, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice said.
Lay's lawyers were not available for comment on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment on the legal implications of Lay's death, but said he expected a decision would likely be announced in the coming days.
Nancy Rapoport, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said the courts have previously ruled that once a defendant had died, the process could not go forward because there was no further penalty the legal system could implement.
"The reason they do it this way is there's nothing really left to punish," she said.