Two months after her fatal stabbing on Charlotte’s light rail, Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska has a North Carolina crime bill named after her.
Decarlos Brown Jr. was arrested after Blue Line video footage confirmed him as the perpetrator of the stabbing. Brown has a lengthy criminal history, including several felonies, as well as a documented mental illness.
Iryna’s Law attempts to fill the gaps in the criminal justice system Brown fell through — and then some.
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Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, first saw the video of the stabbing on social media. Then he saw the news stories about Brown’s criminal and mental health history. He came to the conclusion many North Carolina lawmakers have:
“That individual should have never been on that train that day, and … that he was, was a failure of our judicial system,” Hise said. “… Why does crime and evil grow? Because there’s no consequences for it.”
Monday afternoon, the state Senate passed Iryna’s Law along party lines after extensive debate. It will go to the state House next, which is expected to pass it along to Gov. Josh Stein’s desk this week.
The divide was over a late amendment attempting to revive the state’s death penalty.
Out on bail
Iryna’s Law tries to trace Brown’s path through the criminal justice system prior to the stabbing, and determine how Zarutska’s life could have been spared.
Brown was homeless. The proposed bill would require magistrates or judges to consider a defendant’s housing situation, in addition to a series of other factors, when deciding on any pre-trial release conditions.
Zarutska’s fatal stabbing occurred on Charlotte’s Blue Line. The bill adds an aggravating factor for sentencing: crimes committed while the victim was using public transit.
But the major focus is reforming the bail system.
At the time of the stabbing, Brown was on pre-trial release after being charged with misusing the 911 line, a Class 1 misdemeanor. Brown went to the police, asking for help with a substance in his body he claimed was controlling many of his actions. Brown’s mother said he is diagnosed with schizophrenia.
After police officers told him they couldn’t help him because that was a medical issue, Brown was upset and called 911. He was arrested, and then released ahead of his trial on a written promise to appear for his court date.
Under current law, after someone is arrested, they’re brought before a magistrate or judge, who decides whether they can be released under certain conditions while they await trial.
The conditions may include a written promise to appear, an unsecured appearance bond, placement in the custody of a designated person or supervisory organization, a secured cash bond or house arrest with electronic monitoring.
Iryna’s Law would eliminate the written promise option.
Brown had been charged up to 14 times before the fatal stabbing. That includes a five-year prison sentence for robbery with a dangerous weapon that Brown served from 2015 to 2020.
The bill requires magistrates and judges to require at least a secured appearance bond as a condition of pre-trial release if the arrested person has been convicted of three or more offenses equal to or above a Class 1 misdemeanor in the past decade. If judicial officers do choose to offer pre-trial release to these individuals, or those charged with a violent offense, they must explain their reasoning in writing.
North Carolina’s judicial system has entered into its own effort to reform pre-trial release. Last week, Chief Justice Paul Newby announced a Pretrial Release Task Force to evaluate current practices.
Stabbing incident, mental health and the death penalty
Brown’s mother tried to involuntarily commit him to a psychiatric treatment center earlier this year. It didn’t stick.
Iryna’s Law would require a psychiatric check for arrested individuals charged with violent crimes who either were previously under an involuntary commitment order or believed to be a danger to themselves or others by a judicial officer. The purpose would be to determine whether to involuntarily commit them.
In the bill, legislators establish the North Carolina Collaboratory to study how mental health intersects with the justice system, from the initial evaluation to post-release treatment and monitoring.
The collaboratory will also study the capacity of counties and judicial districts to offer house arrest as a pre-trial release condition and explore methods of execution beyond current law. For over a decade, North Carolina’s death penalty has been effectively stalled by the courts, although it remains on the books.
Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, has expressed his desire to break the judicial moratorium.
An amendment offered Monday by Berger would direct the Department of Adult Corrections to adopt a new execution method if lethal injection is ruled unconstitutional or is unable to be performed for another reason.
The bill would set a two-year deadline for the North Carolina Supreme Court to review death penalty convictions and for courts to conduct postconviction hearings asking for relief.
In an otherwise fairly bipartisan bill in response to the stabbing, Senate Democrats objected to the death penalty provision.
Sen. Graig Meyer, D-Orange, said the amendment would make it more likely that the state would kill innocent people, not less.
“Setting up arbitrary timelines, shot clocks on judicial action or action of the Department of Corrections makes it more likely that the process will be rushed, and we won’t have time to find people who need to be exonerated because they’re innocent,” he said.
Meyer added that in his view, capital punishment violates the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. If North Carolina had to choose another form of execution, the electric chair or firing squad are hardly less cruel than lethal injection, he said.
After Berger’s amendment passed, a majority of Senate Democrats walked out in protest.
Magistrates and money
Republican House Speaker Destin Hall has previously criticized magistrates who are “asleep at the wheel” for letting people like Brown go free before their trial.
Iryna’s Law addresses this concern. It allows the chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court to suspend a magistrate — currently chief district judges’ responsibility — and adds failure to submit written reasoning for certain pre-trial releases as grounds for suspension. Magistrates’ codes of conduct would include rules on conflicts of interest.
Currently, Mecklenburg County employs 61 full-time assistant district attorneys. The bill would set aside $1.6 million to hire 10 more, and $433,000 to the Administrative Office of the Courts for five full-time legal assistant positions in the county.
Finally, the bill would end the Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice created by former Gov. Roy Cooper in 2020.
Republicans have criticized the task force’s work, particularly a section suggesting the elimination of cash bail. But the task force never released anyone from prison, its recommendations were not published until months after Brown’s 2020 release from jail and it already expired last year when Cooper left office, months before the stabbing.
Sen. Meyer said the bill is not only about content, but context. Everyone cares about safety, but using Zarutska’s fatal stabbing for political points is a “slap in the face” to the people of color who, he said, often get unequal treatment in the criminal justice system.
“This bill moves away from the important work that we did in the wake of the tragic George Floyd murder, and uses another tragic murder to actually make a society that will have less justice and more cruelty,” Meyer said.
Hise rejected the idea that the bill was political.
“This isn’t because of the party I represent,” he said. “This isn’t because of other things. This is because of what I saw, what I feel in my spirit.”
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