A transgender inmate, who is attempting to force California to pay for sex reassignment surgery, will likely be released soon on parole as Gov. Jerry Brown took no action on the Board of Parole Hearings’ recommendation.
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Brown will decide whether 51-year-old Michelle-Lael Norsworthy should be released 30 years after she fatally shot 26-year-old Franklin Gordon Liefer Jr. following an argument in a Fullerton bar in 1985.
Three months ago, a federal judge ruled the California state should cover surgery expenses.
Separately on Friday the state reached a settlement with another transgender woman inmate, Shiloh Quine, agreeing to provider her surgery and transfer her to a women’s prison.
Brown has till midnight Friday to determine.
Then 21, Norswrothy was convicted of second-degree murder, after the victim died six weeks after being shot three times.
Norsworthy is now imprisoned at a men’s prison near Sacramento.
He started hormone therapy in 1999 after being diagnosed with gender identity disorder.
The appellate court noted that the case raises serious legal questions about whether denying the surgery violates Norsworthy’s constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
Jeffrey Callison, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said that had every doctor and mental health professional who examined Quine, including two independent experts, said that she needed the gender reassignment surgery.
Quine is now serving a life sentence for murder, kidnapping and robbery.
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At her parole hearing, Norsworthy said she accepted full responsibility for the crime, and that at the time she was “pretty much drinking all day every day”, but that she now attends alcoholics anonymous meetings in prison.
