What happens if a murder defendant dies before the jury returns a verdict?
If a murder defendant dies before the jury returns a verdict, the case ends entirely. The jury simply goes home; no verdict is rendered. Death terminates the legal proceeding. The law no longer has any hold on him, because death has ended the whole thing.
Les explains this with an illustration of a man on trial for murder. The case is nearly over, the man is guilty, and the jury has already made up its mind. But before the jury is sent out to return a verdict, he dies of a heart attack. The jury simply goes home; it's all over because death ended the whole thing. Les then connects this to Paul's analogy about marriage: a woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if he dies, she is loosed from the law of her husband. Death dissolves the legal bond.