Killer sues prison for calling him an 'inmate'

The sister of a cold-blooded killer serving 25 years to life in a New York prison for shooting a man in the head complains he is being stigmatized by the use of the term "inmate." The label "implies that our brother is locked up for the purpose of mating with other men," Marie Domond claimed in a lawsuit against New York State Correctional Services Department.

The Brooklyn federal court filing demands that officials immediately stop calling Gerard Domond "an inmate" - along with a $50 million claim for damages for "mental anguish." In 1987, Gerard, then a 24-year-old with a lengthy rap sheet, killed a man in Brooklyn in a drug deal gone wrong.

Now 49, he is at the Clinton Correctional Facility and eligible for parole in May 2013. Acting as her own lawyer, Marie insists: "The suggestive nature of the word is disgraceful. This cruel psychological programming has weighed heavily on our emotional and psychological well-being."

"It's something that's bothered me for a long time," Marie said. "I couldn't understand why no one recognized that somebody being labelled an inmate, why they wouldn't recognize that. To me it just sounded very wrong."