A Maryland judge has modified the sentence for a blind and bedridden transgender state prisoner dying of AIDS, releasing her to her mother's care.

Thirty-nine-year-old Deirdre Farmer, formerly known as Douglas Farmer, has spent nearly half her life in prisons around the country for credit card fraud. After she was beaten and raped at a federal prison in Indiana, she drew national attention as the subject of a 1994 Supreme Court decision that said prison officials can be held liable for failing to protect an inmate from violence by other prisoners if the officials knew of a "substantial risk of serious harm."

The order releasing her from the Roxbury prison near Hagerstown was signed this week by Court of Special Appeals Chief Judge Joseph Murphy, who sentenced her while on the Circuit Court bench in Baltimore County.

Murphy said Farmer no longer posed a threat to society. Farmer's attorney says the release means Farmer will be allowed to die with dignity.