INDIANAPOLIS, IN - An Indiana inmate convicted of fatally strangling his own stepchild to death in 2001 is slated to receive a taxpayer-funded sex change surgery after a federal judge's ruling.
Jonathan C. Richardson, alias Autumn Cordellionè, sued the Indiana Department of Corrections in pursuit of the procedure last year, according to Fox News. The inmate had the legal assistance of the leftist American Civil Liberties Union in the matter. The organization had argued an existing Indiana state law barring the use of taxpayer funds in sex change surgeries for inmates constituted "cruel and unusual punishment" barred under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.
Judge Richard Young described Richardson's need for the sex change surgery as a pressing medical necessity in a written decision.