Ohio executed a hitchhiker Thursday who admitted to killing one motorist who gave him a ride and shooting two others during a three-week string of shootings that terrorized the Cincinnati area in 1983.

Michael Beuke, 48, died by lethal injection at 10:53 a.m. EDT at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, about 90 minutes after the Ohio Supreme Court turned down his final appeal.

While on the gurney, Beuke recited the Roman Catholic rosary for 17 minutes before he died, choking back tears as he repeatedly said the Hail Mary. He also expressed his sorrow to the families of his three victims.

Beuke, dubbed by the media as the "homicidal hitchhiker," spend a quarter century on death row, where he said he had a spiritual conversion. He expressed remorse for his crimes and said in an unsuccessful request for clemency that he accepted responsibility and prayed "that God will ease the pain I have caused my victims."

Beuke was emotional as the hour of his death neared, crying frequently in his cell at the Lucasville prison, said Julie Walburn, an Ohio prisons spokeswoman.

He was convicted Oct. 5, 1983, of aggravated murder for the death of Robert Craig, 27, of Cincinnati and was sentenced to death. He also was found guilty of the attempted slayings of Gregory Wahoff of Cincinnati and Bruce Graham, then from West Harrison, Ind.

Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade will be in a different kind of court as he faces trial in a $25 million lawsuit filed by his former partners in a failed restaurant venture.

Jury selection was set to begin Wednesday in the case over the defunct D. Wade's Place chain. Wade's former partners claim he broke a contract by demanding higher compensation and then abandoning the deal in 2008.

Wade contends in court documents he had every right to end the business relationship. His lawyer says the all-NBA guard plans to attend the two-week trial and is likely to testify.

Wade is also involved in a messy divorce and faces two other lawsuits over business dealings. One of them involves Miami-based charter schools that were supposed to bear his name.

A judge says an elderly Connecticut woman doesn't have to share her half of a $500,000 lottery windfall with the sister who sued her over it.

Eighty-seven-year-old Rose Bakaysa and her 84-year-old sister, Theresa Sokaitis, have been fighting over the money in court since 2005. That was shortly after Bakaysa and their brother won the Powerball jackpot.

Sokaitis says they signed a notarized contract a decade earlier to split all gambling profits. Bakaysa says that deal ended in 2004 during a spat over a few hundred dollars.

New Britain Superior Court Judge Cynthia Swienton on Wednesday agreed with Bakaysa, ruling the contract ended during the argument.

A New Jersey court has found that records of settlements reached by insurance companies on behalf of government entities should be open to the public.

In 2008, lawyer Mark Cimino asked used the state's Open Public Records Act to request copies of legal settlements involving Gloucester County government.

The county argued that the settlements were made by insurance companies and that records of them were stored with the firms.

A lower court judge agreed that those factors meant the documents in question were not covered by the open records law.

But today, a three-judge appeals panel reversed the ruling, sending it back to a lower court.

A federal judge agreed Monday that a lawyer for Denver-based band The Fray might face liability in the band's ongoing court battle with a former manager.

The band alleges its former manager, Gregg Latterman, failed to disclose that his company obtained ownership to a portion of the band's music when a publishing agreement was signed in 2005.

In a hearing Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Boyd Boland agreed to consider Latterman's claim that the band's lawyer, J. Reid Hunter of New York, was aware of the publishing agreement and failed to inform the band. Hunter didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

The band's hits include 2006's "How to Save a Life" and 2009's "You Found Me."

Latterman filed counterclaims alleging breach of contract. He says The Fray owes his company more than $750,000 in commission and expenses.

Latterman claims The Fray tried to end his management contract early and pressured him to accept concessions, including smaller commissions, as the band's popularity grew.

The Utah Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of a condemned inmate set to die by firing squad.

Ronnie Lee Gardner is scheduled to be executed June 18.

His attorneys filed an appeal seeking to stop the execution and asking for a review of Gardner's 1985 death sentence.

Gardner was convicted in the fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell.

The high court on Thursday set a June 3 hearing date and issued a schedule for attorneys to submit written arguments.

Gardner's attorneys will argue he was denied state funds to pay for experts and investigators who could have provided mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of his trial.

Former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona has asked an appeals court to reverse his 2009 conviction for witness tampering.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Wednesday in Pasadena.

The former sheriff was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison for trying to persuade ex-assistant sheriff Don Haidl to lie during a grand jury probe.

Carona's lawyers argued that prosecutors broke an ethical rule when they arranged for Haidl to secretly record an August 2007 conversation despite knowing Carona had retained a criminal defense attorney.

A federal attorney argued that the government used what he called "permissible decoys."

Carona was acquitted in January of conspiracy, mail fraud and a second witness tampering count in a sweeping public corruption case.