SAN DIEGO (CNS) — A man who killed his cellmate at the San Diego Central Jail may have been experiencing delusions leading up to the killing yet still acted deliberately, a prosecutor argued Wednesday, while a defense attorney said his client had no intent to kill and urged jurors to consider how his mental health condition drove his actions.
Alvin Ruis, 39, is charged with murder in the killing of 24-year-old Brandon Yates on Jan. 16, 2024, less than a day after Yates was arrested and booked into jail.
Yates was strangled or smothered to death by Ruis, who then stripped the victim naked and tied him up with pieces of a torn shirt, a prosecutor told a downtown San Diego jury on Wednesday morning.
Ruis has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Jurors will be tasked first with determining whether Ruis is guilty of murder. If found guilty, he will face a second "sanity phase" to determine if he was legally insane at the time of the killing.
Yates' death sparked a federal lawsuit from his family, one of numerous lawsuits brought against San Diego County by the families of incarcerated people who died or allegedly suffered neglect while jailed.
The wrongful death suit claims Yates and Ruis should not have been housed together due to Ruis' escalating violent behavior in the days leading up to the homicide, including alleged attacks on other inmates and jail staff.
Shortly after a judge denied a county request to dismiss the lawsuit, San Diego County countersued one of its jail healthcare providers, NaphCare, for allegedly failing to provide Ruis with adequate mental health treatment. In its countersuit, the county seeks to have NaphCare indemnify the county for damages that might arise from the Yates' family's wrongful death suit.
Last month, NaphCare filed a motion to dismiss it from the Yates family's lawsuit. In the motion, NaphCare alleged the decisions that ultimately placed Yates at risk lay at the county's feet.
"Ruis's security classification and Yates's housing were County decisions, and the fatal cell assignment was made by a County deputy who moved Yates into Ruis's cell," NaphCare's motion reads.
On Wednesday, Deputy District Attorney Andrew Hart said that while the killing was not captured by cameras or viewed by eyewitnesses, the severity of Yates' injuries will illustrate Ruis' intent.
The prosecutor said the only motive jurors might hear in the trial was one that was "absolutely senseless," but said, "The evidence will show that it can be senseless and also willful."
One of Ruis' defense attorneys, David Wilson, called the killing "impossibly tragic" but said Ruis' mental health condition was "the author of the tragedy."
The attorney said Ruis was a successful business owner until mental health issues surfaced in his 30s, prompting multiple hospitalizations and his arrest in late 2023.
Wilson said the defense will call mental health experts to the stand, as well as an expert on "jailhouse stressors" Ruis was subjected to at the jail, such as isolation.
Ruis is expected to testify during the trial and Wilson said he would tell jurors about his experiences while at the San Diego Central Jail, which included being attacked by other inmates, incidents of self-harming behavior, and multiple requests he made to jail staff for assistance with his mental health issues.
During this 20-day time frame of incarceration, Ruis was placed in Enhanced Observation Housing multiple times for inmates at elevated risk of violence or suicide, but was discharged from the housing unit each time.
Wilson said that on the day of the killing, Ruis' delusions had become so severe that he believed the devil had entered Yates' body and God was commanding him to kill the devil.
However, Wilson argued that Ruis believed he could kill the devil without harming Yates and was trying to be merciful to him throughout the act.
The defense attorney urged jurors to "understand this condition and the conduct that resulted ... It won't alleviate the tragedy, but the intent to kill will be missing."
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