PITTSFIELD — A state appeals court has upheld the judgment that freed Bernard Baran, who was convicted in 1985 of molesting five young children at the Early Childhood Development Center in Pittsfield.

The ruling, issued late this morning, means that Baran will remain free pending a new trial or a successful appeal by the Berkshire District Attorney's office to the Supreme Judicial Court.

Baran, now 43, was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences in 1985 after a trial in Berkshire Superior Court. His initial appeal was denied a year later, but his case was kept alive by a growing number of supporters who believed that Baran, a gay man, was a victim of hysteria surrounding day care centers and child molestation allegations during the 1980s.

In June 2006, Superior Court Judge Francis R. Fecteau overturned Baran's convictions, concluding that his original defense attorney, Leonard Conway, was incompetent. After serving 21 years in prison, Baran went free.

MILFORD — For a third time, the trial for a Milford teen accused of stabbing Daniel Columbo to death on Carroll Street in 2006 has been postponed.

Jury selection in the case of 19-year-old Patrick Powell, which had been set to start Monday in Worcester Superior Court, is rescheduled for May 25.

District attorney spokesman Tim Connolly said the latest delay is because Assistant District Attorney Eduardo Velazquez, who is prosecuting, will be tied up through the end of March with another case - that of Lee Chiero, an Uxbridge man accused of killing his mother.

Powell and a second teen, Vinnie Ruscitti, 19, were indicted by a grand jury in April 2006 on murder charges. Prosecutors say Powell stabbed Columbo during a street fight on Jan. 6, 2006. Ruscitti is charged on the theory of a joint venture. Prosecutors say he was at the scene, and was overheard at a high school basketball game hours before the attack talking about killing Columbo.