PITTSBURGH — The state Supreme Court decided that a convicted drug dealer must complete his prison term, even though he remained free for nearly a decade due to bureaucratic mistakes.

The high court's decision, handed down on Thursday, said Sheldon West must complete the jail time he earned for a 1990 drug dealing conviction. West had been sentenced in 1991 to serve a prison term of 27 to 54 months.

Until April 2002, when he was arrested on a fugitive warrant during a traffic stop, West said he thought he had won a 1993 appeal in the case.

What he discovered, however, was that he had lost the appeal and had been allowed to remain free only because of court and prison bureaucratic negligence — even though he had appeared in several county courts over the years on other charges.

In February 2005, the Superior Court ruled in favor of West, saying he was denied his rights because court officials never told him he had lost his appeal and didn't try to bring him back to prison.

The Supreme Court, however, overruled the Superior Court.

The justices disagreed with West that his rights for further appeal had been violated because of the time that had lapsed, leading to evidence going stale. The judges stated that such a conclusion was "merely speculative and not based upon the loss of any real potential meritorious claim."

In fact, Justice Max Baer wrote, West sought to appeal a claim that had already been argued in court, something that is not permissible.

It wasn't immediately clear how much prison time West has left to serve. He had already served part of his sentence at the state prison in Camp Hill and was released in August 2004.

A call to West's attorney, Herbert Terrell, was not immediately returned. Department of Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said Friday that officials were trying to determine West's status.