NORTHEAST

STATE SUPREME COURT POSTPONES EXECUTION

HARTFORD, Conn. – The state Supreme Court yesterday postponed the lethal injection of serial killer Michael Ross until May 13, again delaying New England’s first scheduled execution in 45 years. The 48-hour postponement gives attorneys the full 20 days required by law to appeal Judge Patrick Clifford’s April 22 ruling that found Michael Ross competent to forgo his appeals and voluntarily accept his death sentence. The postponement also will allow the court more time to decide if Hartford attorney Thomas Groark has standing to file an appeal.

Mr. Groark was appointed by Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford to argue during last month’s competency hearing that Ross is mentally unfit. He has asked the Supreme Court to allow him to continue that role during the appeals process.

The Office of Chief State’s Attorney, in a response filed yesterday, argued that Mr. Groark has no standing to appeal, and that his participation the case ended when Judge Clifford last month found Ross to be competent.

– Associated Press

BOSTON SETTLES WITH FAMILY OF SLAIN COLLEGE STUDENT

BOSTON – The city paid $5.1 million yesterday to the parents of a college student who was killed by a pepper-spray pellet fired by police trying to quell rioters after the Boston Red Sox won the pennant last fall. Victoria Snelgrove, a 21-year-old Emerson College senior, died hours after she was hit in the eye socket with the projectile outside Fenway Park on October 21. The crowd was celebrating Boston’s victory over the New York Yankees. “I am hopeful the settlement recognizes the tremendous loss to them and represents our acceptance in the role the police played in that tragedy,” Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole, said. Ms. O’Toole said Snelgrove was an innocent bystander and had not “engaged in any activity that would have led police to think that she was behaving unlawfully.”

– Associated Press

SOUTH

JILTED GROOM WANTS TO MARRY HIS RUNAWAY BRIDE DULUTH, Ga. – The jilted groom whose bride-to-be ran away four days before their wedding still wants to marry Jennifer Wilbanks, saying, “Haven’t we all made mistakes?”

“Just because we haven’t walked down the aisle, just because we haven’t stood in front of 500 people and said our I Do’s, my commitment before God to her was the day I bought that ring and put it on her finger, and I’m not backing down from that,” John Mason said yesterday in an interview with Fox News’s Hannity & Colmes show. It was Mr. Mason’s first public statement since he learned on the morning of his scheduled wedding day that his fiancee had gotten cold feet. As her family and friends feared the worst, police say Ms. Wilbanks cut her hair and took a Greyhound bus to Las Vegas to back out of a lavish, 600-guest wedding planned for Saturday. She then went on to Albuquerque, N.M., where she eventually called Mr. Mason and police from a pay phone at a 7-Eleven, saying she had been kidnapped. She later said it simply a case of cold feet. Mr. Mason said he has given the 32-year-old Ms. Wilbanks her ring back – she had left it at the house – and said they still planned to marry.

– Associated Press

CUSTOMER FINDS EMPLOYEE’S FINGER IN CUSTARD

WILMINGTON, N.C. – A man who ordered a pint of frozen chocolate custard in a dessert shop got a nasty surprise inside – a piece of severed finger lost by an employee in an accident. Unlike a recent incident at a Wendy’s restaurant in California, no questions of truth have been raised about the finger found in a package from Kohl’s Frozen Custard. State officials went to the shop yesterday, and the owner confirmed one of his employees lost part of a finger in an accident with a food-processing machine. Wilmington television station WWAY reported that Clarence Stowers found the finger in custard he purchased Sunday night. Mr. Stowers told the station: “I thought it was candy because they put candy in your ice cream … to make it a treat. So I said, ‘Okay, well, I’ll just put it in my mouth and get the ice cream off of it and see what it is.'” Mr. Stowers said he spit the object out, but still couldn’t identify it. So he went to his kitchen, rinsed it off with water – and “just started screaming.”

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

HOUSE, SENATE REACH TENTATIVE DEAL ON LICENSES, ASYLUM MEASURES

Senate negotiators yesterday accepted a House plan to make states verify that driver’s license applicants are American citizens or legal immigrants but softened House-proposed changes in asylum laws. The measures are part of a bill to pay for continuing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still unresolved was how much more money to spend on border security. Congressional aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, said negotiators are still apart on provisions that would devote $4 million each to a Fire Science Academy in Elko, Nev., and environment cleanup of a former Energy Department site in New Mexico. Also in dispute was about $600 million in the Senate version of the bill to hire 1,000 new border patrol officers and other immigration agents and provide 2,000 new beds for detainees.

– Associated Press