Attorney seeks justice for Marine confined more than 2 years without trial or charges
SAN DIEGO _ A Marine recruit arrested for allegedly striking a drill instructor at the service's San Diego boot camp has spent most of the last two years in the brig and is now confined to a federal prison hospital.
He has not had a trial, nor has he been charged with a crime, according to the Marine Corps and the man's attorney.
Jay-Ar Ruiz's case raises questions about how the military justice system handles complex issues involving mental health, his attorney says, and how someone like Ruiz _ who his lawyer says had a preexisting mental illness _ was allowed to ship off to boot camp in the first place.
Ruiz, 28, enlisted in the Marine Corps in Los Angeles and reported to the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot in November 2017. By January 2018, three months later, he was locked in the brig at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, where he would remain for 22 months.
It wasn't long after he started training that Ruiz began exhibiting behaviors his lawyer says were symptomatic of mental illness _ a condition she says should have disqualified him for military service.
_ The San Diego Union-Tribune
