SAN JOSE — Six years after a man sought by immigration authorities was charged with brutally stabbing a South San Jose woman in a case that drew national scrutiny to the county’s sanctuary policies, his prosecution remains in limbo after he was deemed — for a second time — incompetent to stand trial for murder.
Carlos Arevalo Carranza, 30, was again committed to Napa State Hospital last month following a competency trial in Santa Clara County Superior Court. A judge issued the order after hearing testimony indicating that Arevalo, a diagnosed schizophrenic, had regressed since the state declared him “restored” from a 2023 incompetency finding that halted his prosecution in the death of 59-year-old Bambi Larson.
Arevalo was sent back to the Main Jail in San Jose in September after spending about a year and a half in the custodial psychiatric facility. In Napa, he was reportedly brought to competency through treatment according to the hospital’s standards.
Miguel Rodriguez, a county assistant public defender, said he quickly “had serious concerns” that caused him to question the restoration. He added that his office hired a psychologist who affirmed his suspicions, which was then followed by other signs of Arevalo’s mental deterioration.
“Mr. Arevalo refused to take his medications, take care of his hygiene and he refused to leave his cell for jail medical staff visits,” Rodriguez told this news organization. “He also refused attorney visits and would not attend court.”
In Napa, Arevalo regularly took clozapine to treat his schizophrenia. His later refusal to take the medication in jail prompted the district attorney’s office earlier this year to secure an involuntary medication order for Arevalo, which required the use of an injectable drug, paliparidone. The new medication was not effective, and the April 14 incompetency finding led to his second state psychiatric commitment.
But the state has a two-year limit on restoring someone’s mental fitness for trial. Arevalo has exhausted about 19 months, so the state has roughly four more months.
If he is restored, Arevalo would face trial, with a murder conviction likely resulting in a lifetime prison sentence. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, he would be confined to a state psychiatric facility, presumably for the rest of his life.
But if Arevalo is not deemed competent when his time in Napa expires, he could be subject to a Murphy conservatorship, which would terminate his criminal liability and place him in locked psychiatric care under civil supervision administered by the County Counsel’s Office. His custodial status would be reviewed annually, assessing whether he is still a danger to himself or the public.
Prosecutors lament the prospect of not having a criminal trial.
“We just want to try him and convict him of this heinous murder,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in an interview. “He butchered Bambi Larson, and we want to protect the public by putting him away in a locked facility for the rest of his life.”
Rosen added, “I leave it to the courts and to the experts to decide whether that locked facility is a mental hospital or a prison. As the DA, and on behalf of our residents, the defendant is violent and dangerous and needs to be removed from society in order to protect our community. … This has been incredibly frustrating.”
Through the DA’s office, Larson’s family declined to comment for this story.
In the early morning hours of Feb. 28, 2019, San Jose police investigators contend, Arevalo entered the home where Larson lived alone and stabbed her to death in her bedroom. There is no indication that the two had ever met; when Arevalo was arrested by police 11 days later, officers found him with Larson’s phone and tablet, a knife and boots that matched bloody shoe prints found at the crime scene.
Arevalo, a native of El Salvador, was living in the country illegally. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said he had been the subject of six ICE civil detainer requests following previous arrests on suspicion of drug, burglary and other crimes.
Larson’s killing became a political lightning rod in Santa Clara County, fueling debate among political leaders and law enforcement officials who recognized the county’s status as a sanctuary community — meaning local government would not perform ad hoc immigration enforcement — but wanted a stronger position against people in the country illegally who commit violent crimes.
Ultimately, the Board of Supervisors stood by the county’s sanctuary policy, namely its prohibition against honoring civil detainer requests from ICE agents and requiring a criminal warrant to hold anyone past their jail release. Supervisors sided with officials who held firm that ICE had the resources, including access to law-enforcement databases, to make the detentions themselves, and argued using local taxpayer resources for that enforcement was both wasteful and eroded community trust in local authorities.
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“The county, at some point, would have the incentive to release him from the conservatorship because of the expense. … It isn’t guaranteed to last for any particular length of time,” he said. “(Arevalo) has an incentive to (show signs of severe mental illness) so that he won’t go to trial, so the clock runs out and he’s in the Murphy conservatorship. Then he has an incentive to say, ‘I’m not gravely disabled, I’m not a threat to myself or others,’ and now he’s out.”
Rodriguez disagreed with that assessment and said that, given Arevalo’s documented psychiatric problems, there is little chance that he will ever be a free man.
“Whether Mr. Arevalo is convicted in criminal court … or eventually conserved, he will remain in a locked facility for many years and likely the remainder of his life,” he said.
He continued: “This case is about how we treat people that are severely mentally ill. Do we place them in locked psychiatric facilities where the safety of the public can be ensured, while they are treated for their severe mental disorders? Or do we convict them through a court process that they do not understand, and cannot rationally participate in, and then send them to a prison system that is not equipped to deal with their several mental health issues?”
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