NC Republicans file their crime bill following Charlotte stabbing. Read it here.
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NC Republicans introduced 'Iryna’s Law' to tighten pretrial release rules.
- The bill mandates secured bonds or monitoring for violent offense charges.
- Provisions aim to streamline death penalty appeals and increase mental evaluations.
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Charlotte light rail train stabbing
A 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, was fatally stabbed on Aug. 22 on the light rail line in Charlotte’s South End. 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown Jr., who has a reported history of mental health issues, is charged in the killing. Zarutska’s death has received national attention, with public comments from President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Charlotte officials.
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Republican state lawmakers have released an anticipated wide-ranging crime bill that they began working on after the deadly stabbing in August on the Charlotte light rail that drew national attention.
The 17-page bill posted on the General Assembly’s website Sunday evening — which will receive its first committee hearings and possible votes on Monday — includes changes to the state’s laws regarding pretrial release. It would require judges and magistrates to only release people charged under a broad category of “violent offenses” on a secured bond, or on house arrest with electronic monitoring.
The bill, which is named “Iryna’s Law” in honor of Iryna Zarutska, the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who was fatally stabbed on Charlotte’s Lynx Blue Line on Aug. 22, is expected to move forward quickly this week while lawmakers are back in Raleigh for just a few days.
GOP legislative leaders said earlier this month they would seek to require people with violent felonies on their records to only be released on secured bonds, which require paying a specified amount in the form of bail before release.
State and federal prosecutors have charged 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown Jr. in the stabbing.
At a press conference earlier in September, House Speaker Destin Hall singled out Brown’s prior conviction for armed robbery and a five-year stint in state prison. Hall said that if someone coming before a magistrate has a violent felony in their criminal record, that person should be required to post a secured bond to be eligible for pre-trial release.
Brown was arrested twice in 2024 for a misdemeanor misusing 911. In January, he was arrested and charged with that offense again when he asked police to investigate a “man-made” material he said controlled when he ate, walked, and talked. Court records show that Magistrate Teresa Stokes released Brown on Jan. 19, the same day he was arrested, on a written promise to appear, the Charlotte Observer previously reported.
The charge was still pending against Brown when he boarded the light rail on Aug. 22. Less than a month earlier, a judge had ordered his mental capacity to be evaluated.
GOP leaders tout bill; top Democrat calls it a ‘missed opportunity’
Hall said in a news release on Sunday that GOP lawmakers “will simply not tolerate policies that allow violent offenders back onto our streets to commit more crimes and jeopardize public safety.”
“We cannot let North Carolina be held hostage by woke, weak-on-crime policies and court officials who prioritize criminals over justice for victims,” Senate leader Phil Berger said in the release.
Rep. Marcia Morey, a Democrat from Durham who is a retired judge, was critical of the bill, telling The News & Observer on Sunday that the legislation Republicans have put together “is more political than practical.”
Morey pointed to a provision in the bill blocking a racial equity task force created by former Gov. Roy Cooper in June 2020 from being reformed, which Berger previously said would be rolled back under the bill. She said that blaming the task force, which expired last year, “is pure politics.”
“We need more funding for in patient treatment for people with serious mental illness. Law enforcement needs to be better trained to divert people to involuntary commitment treatment rather than charge people in obvious mental distress with misdemeanor misuse of 911 calls,” Morey said.
“This crime was a horrible tragedy and to now name a bill in the victim’s name that does very little, if anything, to properly fund emergency mental health treatment is a missed opportunity,” she added.
The bill will receive its first committee hearings Monday at 11 a.m. in the Senate Judiciary Committee and 1:30 p.m. in the Senate Rules Committee. It could be voted on by the Senate as early as Monday afternoon. The House could take it up as early as Tuesday.
Mental health evaluations included
Another provision in the bill would require judicial officials to order mental health evaluations for people who are charged with violent offenses and have been involuntarily committed in the last three years.
More broadly, judicial officials would also be able to order evaluations for people charged with any kind of offense, if they believe the individual “is a danger to themselves or others.”
If the evaluation finds the person needs to be involuntarily committed, officials would be required to start commitment proceedings.
The bill also includes some steps to try to restart executions in North Carolina and end the de-facto moratorium that has been in place because of ongoing legal challenges, since 2006.
The death penalty provisions target the process of appeals, and require they be heard by courts within two years of filing while restricting continuances. Appeals or motions filed more than 24 months ago would need to be heard within the next year. And any hearings related to a capital case would need to be held in the county where the conviction happened.
The bill would also make a capital felony being committed while a victim was using public transportation an aggravating factor for prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
The joint news release from Hall and Berger said that doing this “ensures that prosecutors can pursue, and the courts can impose, the death penalty without question for similar crimes like the one that took Iryna’s life.”
Other provisions in the wide-ranging bill include requiring judicial officials to review and consider a defendant’s criminal history before deciding the conditions of their pretrial release, and requiring written findings of fact that explain how judicial officials determined conditions for release in each case.
The bill would also allow the chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court or the chief district court judge to initiate proceedings to suspend magistrates.
This story was originally published September 21, 2025 at 8:15 PM with the headline "NC Republicans file their crime bill following Charlotte stabbing. Read it here.."
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