A former Orange County sheriff’s deputy was acquitted Tuesday of using excessive force when pouring hot water on the arm of a mentally ill defendant to get him to pull his hands back into his cell in Orange Count Jail.
Jurors began deliberations Thursday afternoon and reached a verdict Tuesday morning when deliberations resumed, acquitting Guadalupe Ortiz of a misdemeanor count of simple battery by an officer.
Ortiz was originally charged with a felony count of assault and battery by a public officer and a felony count of battery with serious bodily injury, but those charges were knocked down to misdemeanors with the battery with serious bodily injury charge dismissed Feb. 3.
Ortiz injured the inmate April 1, 2021. His attorney, John Barnett, argued that his client, who was honored by the department for his out-of-the-box strategies to gain compliance from inmates housed in the wing of the jail for inmates with mental health issues, was engaged in legal force to get Oscar Rodriguez to comply.
Deputy District Attorney David McMurrin began his closing argument Thursday with video of the incident with Rodriguez.
“What you just saw was an assault by the defendant, by a public officer,” McMurrin said. “He pours hot water, causing first- and second-degree burns. He committed a crime when he was working that day.”
McMurrin acknowledged Rodriguez’s troubled history in Module L of the jail, which houses mentally ill inmates.
“This is not a popularity contest,” McMurrin said. “We knew you wouldn’t like Mr. Rodriguez. He’s an inmate for a reason.”
But inmates in that wing of the jail require more patience from deputies, McMurrin said.
“They don’t behave like anybody else,” he said. “The deputies know that.” The de-escalation techniques the deputies in Module L are taught “requires them to have more patience,” McMurrin said.
Ortiz “knew that. He was trained,” the prosecutor argued. “He knew what he was supposed to do.”
After Rodriguez was burned he flinched and pulled his arms back while pointing at Ortiz, McMurrin said.
At issue legally was whether the use of force was reasonable under the circumstances, McMurrin said.
“He wasn’t about to make tea” with the hot water, McMurrin said. “It was a willful action.”
McMurrin argued the use of force was unnecessary.
Rodriguez put his hands through a hatch in his cell and refused to pull them back in. He wasn’t posing a danger to anyone passing by or holding up jail functions, McMurrin argued.
Rodriguez was “throwing a tantrum like a little child,” but he was “not a threat,” McMurrin said.
Rodriguez, who has been diagnosed schizophrenic, was “off his meds because he didn’t think they work,” McMurrin said.
Barnett said prosecutors did not directly rebut his own expert’s testimony that the use of force was “reasonable and necessary.”
Barnett argued that Scott DeFoe is a gold standard of experts on use of force and that he concluded that given all the circumstances Ortiz was justified in his actions.
McMurrin never directly asked his own expert — a sheriff’s sergeant — whether the use of force was OK, Barnett argued.
“Not a single witness said this was unreasonable or unnecessary,” Barnett said.
The prosecution’s expert was “silent on the only issue you have to decide,” Barnett told jurors.
Ortiz mixed hot and cold water and poured it on Rodriguez because he figured eventually the deputies would have to call in an extraction team, which would use a more aggressive form of force, the lawyer said.
“He doesn’t want him to go to the rubber room,” Barnett argued. “He’s looking after Oscar and no one disputed that.”
Ortiz was well acquainted with Rodriguez, Barnett said.
“He knew him better than anybody,” Barnett said. “He said Oscar was in his downward spiral … and he had seen that before.”
Deputy Joseph Mayers was not regularly assigned to the Module L section of the Intake Release Center in Santa Ana, but was working there when he escorted a nurse to treat cuts on the hand of Rodriguez through a hatch in his cell, according to McMurrin.
At some point the inmate exposed himself and said something along the lines of “treat this,” according to the prosecutor.
When Mayers told him he would be written up for it, Rodriguez refused to pull his arms back into the cell to allow for the hatch to close, McMurrin said.
Multiple attempts to get Rodriguez to comply failed, so Mayers and another deputy turned to the veteran Ortiz, who had 23 years on the job with eight in the Mod L assignment, Barnett said.
On the day of the conflict with Rodriguez, the inmate had smeared his cell with feces, Barnett alleged.
Six weeks prior to the conflict, Ortiz was given a commendation for “being caring … for helping mentally challenged inmates,” Barnett said.
Ortiz was named jail deputy of the year in 2016-17, Barnett added.
There was some urgency to get Rodriguez to pull his hands back into his cell because deputies were concerned he might grab a nurse or deputy passing by, so it meant none of the other inmates were getting their medications, Barnett said.
Ortiz wasn’t aware Rodriguez was burned, Barnett said.
Hilary Velardo, an Orange County Crime Lab forensic specialist, testified that she tested the water from the dispenser at the jail and it was measured about 190 degrees, but under questioning from Barnett she said she did not test to see what the temperature would be with a mix of cold water.
Deputy Chris Roberts, a behavioral health specialist at the jail, said Rodriguez was “a highly erratic individual,” who would sometimes “have some OK days, but even his good days weren’t great … He could be highly confrontational.”
Roberts was filling in for another guard during lunch when the conflict with Rodriguez occurred. Roberts testified it was important to get the inmate to pull his hands back in because he noted one time a nurse had her arm broken by an inmate grabbing her.
Roberts said he had asked Rodriguez to clean up the feces he smeared on the wall that day. He also saw Mayers and another deputy attempt to talk to Rodriguez to get him to pull his hands back in.
“I could see a lot of frantic motions,” Roberts testified about his vantage point from a guard tower. “He was just ranting and raving and I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.”
Eventually, the three deputies returned to the guard station and told Roberts the “situation was taken care of,” Roberts said. “Everything seemed under control … When the deputies said it was handled I didn’t think much more about it.”
Roberts testified that the deputies would use saline bottles to squirt at inmates during safety checks to get a reaction to make sure they were OK. They called it “holy water,” and that method was preferred because sometimes an inmate might “feign” sleeping and attack a deputy who goes into the cell, Roberts said.
Ortiz was a mentor who had provided insights into gaining compliance with inmates with tactics not in the training manual, Roberts testified. The goal was to avoid use of force, he added.
Mayers, who was with Ortiz when he used the water on Rodriguez, said the inmate “shouted, `Hey,’ and he seemed agitated,” before he pulled his hands back in and another deputy closed the hatch.
Mayers said he did not expect Ortiz to use the tactic and that the defendant did not warn the inmate.
“Based on what I had seen from Deputy Ortiz in the past it seemed unconventional, but plausible,” Mayers testified. “He had a lot of experience. He had also been very recently publicly recognized for his unconventional tactics.”
Rodriguez did not complain of a burn at the time, Mayers said.
Near the end of his shift, Rodriguez asked for Neosporin, but Mayers knew he was going to get some later for the cuts on his hand and told him the nurse would be along later, he said.
The next day Mayers approached a sergeant to get “clarification” on whether the tactic was OK.