Transgender Inmate Freed Before Federal Hearing On Surgery

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California has paroled a transgender inmate a day before a federal appeals court was to hear her request for the state prison to pay for her sex reassignment surgery.

State corrections officials say Michelle-Lael Norsworthy was released Wednesday from Mule Creek State Prison, a men's facility east of Sacramento. She will be supervised on parole in San Francisco.

Gov. Jerry Brown allowed her parole last week when he took no action on a Board of Parole Hearings' recommendation that Norsworthy be freed.

Brown decided Norsworthy is no longer dangerous, 30 years after she fatally shot Franklin Gordon Liefer Jr., 26, following an argument in a Fullerton bar in November 1985.

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The state says her release ends her attempt to have the prison-funded sex reassignment surgery.

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