People v. Giddens CA4/2

FACTS

At West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, inmates receive their

meals on styrofoam trays delivered through a foot-wide “tray slot” in the center of their

cell doors. The jail employs a tray-for-tray mealtime policy, for sanitary reasons. To

receive the current meal, inmates must pass the spent trays from their previous meal

through the slot so they may be disposed of and don’t remain in the cells for extended

periods of time. On August 17, 2018, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Jenna Van

Leer was on lunch duty in Giddens’s unit delivering trays of food. When she reached

Giddens’s cell, Deputy Van Leer could see through the window in her door that Giddens

had taken off her pants and was wearing only her shirt and underwear and that she had

multiple spent trays stacked in her cell.

Deputy Van Leer opened the tray slot in Giddens’s door and asked for her spent

trays. Giddens refused to hand them over, so Deputy Van Leer finished serving the rest of

the unit before returning to Giddens’s cell. As Deputy Van Leer served the others,

Giddens started throwing her spent trays out of her tray slot. When Deputy Van Leer

returned, Giddens pushed her hands…