QUADRIPLEGIC RAPIST TO BE FREED FROM PRISON: CORCORAN (AP) — California prison officials will free a quadriplegic rapist whose care costs the state $625,000 a year.
A parole board agreed this week to release Steven Martinez from Corcoran state prison.
He applied last year to become the first inmate freed under a medical parole law that aims to reduce prison costs. Martinez was turned down as a public safety risk. An appeals court in San Diego rejected that decision last month and ordered his release.
He'll be the 48th inmate paroled under the program.
Martinez got 157 years-to-life in 1998 for a San Diego attack in which he rammed a woman's car, then kidnapped and repeatedly raped her.
He was paralyzed a decade ago when another inmate stabbed him in the neck.
SF SHERIFF WON'T YIELD OVERSIGHT AFTER CONVICTION: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco's sheriff has told Mayor Ed Lee that he will not give up oversight of his department's domestic violence prevention program despite being on probation in such a case.
Ross Mirkarimi told Lee in a three-page letter written Nov. 9 that his undersheriff will handle any disciplinary actions involving subordinates accused of domestic violence and Mirkarimi will have no input.
The sheriff also wrote that he has no day-to-day role in administering two domestic violence prevention programs and in supervising inmates who are in custody for such offenses.
AMPUTEE SUING N. HOSPITAL FOR MALPRACTICE: SACRAMENTO (AP) — A Northern California man whose hands and legs were amputated is suing a hospital for medical malpractice, saying he was consistently misdiagnosed until it was too late to save his limbs.
Robert Downey, 48, blames the loss of his hands and limbs on Sutter Memorial Hospital, saying doctors failed to diagnose and treat him properly for an MSSA infection.
Methicillin-sensitive staphylococcus aureus is typically treatable with antibiotics if caught early.
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Downey and his wife, Cheri, say the Sacramento hospital failed repeatedly to properly diagnose the infection even though their 11-year-old son had been treated in 2011 for the similar infection at the hospital.
