By MICHAEL VIRTANEN
Associated Press

ALBANY - More than 50 inmates are being released from state prison following an April ruling by New York's highest court that prison officials cannot impose post-release supervision when the sentencing judge neglected to.

Gov. David Paterson's administration has declined to release several hundred others in circumstances that are at least similar and on Friday sought a judge's support to hold them until they are resentenced.

The inmates had been sent back to prison for technical violations of their supervision. Defense lawyers said that's unlawful when there was no legal basis for that supervision in the first place.

‘‘There's simply no authority to hold these guys. Judges have to let them go,'' said Elon Harpaz, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society in New York City. On April 29, he won the Court of Appeals ruling for Elliott Garner, whose five years of mandatory supervision as a second-felony offender were imposed by the Department of Correctional Services as he left prison, not by the sentencing judge. Garner was subsequently imprisoned for drug use that violated terms of his supervision.

Since the ruling, Harpaz said he has filed writs of habeas corpus that have freed 15 other prisoners. He said probably 100 to 200 were freed before that. ‘‘My understanding is, I believe, approximately 50 to 60 more defendants have been released when they've been brought back before the sentencing judges,'' he said.

The Court of Appeals also ruled in five other cases like Garner's, which differed in that they had documents in the records indicating that judges or the courts had intended to impose post-release supervision but had not done so. Those cases were sent back to the trial courts for resentencing.

Corrections officials identified 585 inmates in custody on technical violations of post-release supervision whose court commitment was silent on that supervision, said Erik Kriss, spokesman for the corrections department. That now calls for a case-by-case review of court records, commitment papers and sentencing minutes, he said.

‘‘We don't want inmates to go free on a technicality we can correct technically and make sure the proper sentence is in fact in place. It's a matter of public safety,'' Kriss said. ‘‘We're trying to go back to court in priority order to try and get them properly sentenced.''

‘‘We're racing the clock,'' Kriss said. ‘‘We're trying to get, basically, a statement saying you can hold these guys til you're able to get them properly sentenced,'' he said of the motion argued in state Supreme Court in Albany.

Hon. John Egan Jr. reserved decision Friday.

‘‘I understand from a public-safety point of view this is a concern. There's at least one instance I'm aware of somebody got out and allegedly did a very bad thing,'' Harpaz said.

He was referring to Jamal Winter, 22, who had been picked up on a robbery charge and post-release supervision violation. He was released on $10,000 bail and won habeas corpus from the violation, Harpaz said.

Winter has since been charged with the May 16 murder of a grandmother in Brooklyn.