In this May 21, 2015, file photo, inmate Michelle-Lael Norsworthy speaks during her parole hearing at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, Calif. AP
CALIFORNIA, United States—A transgender inmate has been paroled in California 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 a men’s facility. She will be supervised on parole in San Francisco.
Gov. Jerry Brown took no action on a Board of Parole Hearings’ recommendation that Norsworthy be freed 30 years after fatally shooting a man in a bar, effectively approving her parole.
The state says her release ends her attempt to have the prison-funded sex reassignment surgery.