Emilcar Bermudez v. Theodore Reid, Superintendent, and Robert Abrams, Attorney General, State of New York

While this court rarely uses a formal opinion to dispose of a procedural motion, we think that our denial of the Attorney General’s motion for a stay pending appeal warrants written explanation, because the effect of our action is to require the state to release from prison a convicted felon who has served only four of the five years of his minimum sentence. Just as Judge Stewart found below that the Attorney General’s inattention to this habeas corpus petition required a default judgment, we, too, feel that respondent’s lack of diligence in handling this proceeding, coupled with the absence…