Johnetta v. Municipal Court

Johnetta J. (defendant) was charged with felony assault on a peace officer after she assaulted a sheriff’s deputy who was removing Johnetta from a courtroom after she became disruptive. As she was being removed, Johnetta bit the deputy on his arm, penetrating the skin and drawing blood. The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department (department) filed a motion seeking a court order to test Johnetta’s blood for HIV. The department acknowledged that it had no information indicating that Johnetta had HIV. In the motion, the deputy’s doctor stated that there had not been any blood in Johnetta’s mouth when Johnetta bit the deputy but that the bite had created a deep puncture and saliva had been transferred from Johnetta to the deputy. The doctor noted that in such circumstances, HIV transmission was theoretically possible. At a hearing, expert witnesses testified that no cases of HIV transmission by saliva or through biting had been reported and that there was no reason to think that HIV was transmitted through biting. Another expert stated that the risk of HIV transmission through biting was low but that there was not enough information to conclude that HIV could not be transmitted through a bite that broke the skin. The court granted the order to test Johnetta. Johnetta sought a writ of prohibition to prevent the execution of the court order, arguing that the law under which the order had been granted violated her constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.