United States v. Vilar

Alberto Vilar timely appealed his criminal conviction in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Sullivan, /.). He now moves to withdraw his direct appeal with leave to reinstate it after he has finished pursuing an application for a writ a habeas corpus in the district court. The United States and Vilar’s codefendant both oppose this motion on the ground that it will delay the direct appeal. The government further argues that grant of the motion would invert the ordinary sequence of proceedings in which a defendant exhausts his direct appeals before pursuing…