North Carolina legislature passes 'Iryna's Law' after refugee's stabbing death

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — In response to the stabbing death of a Ukrainian refugee on Charlotte’s light rail system, the North Carolina legislature gave final approval Tuesday to a criminal justice package that limits bail and seeks to ensure more defendants undergo mental health evaluations.

The Republican-penned bill also could help restart executions in the state.

The House voted 81-31 to accept the omnibus measure passed by the Senate on Monday, sending it next to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein. Stein, a former attorney general, has said he supports some pretrial reforms following the fatal Aug. 22 attack upon 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska.

It wasn't immediately clear whether Stein would sign the bill into law or veto it. A Stein spokesperson said he was reviewing the measure.

The attack suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., had been arrested more than a dozen times and was released earlier this year by a magistrate on a misdemeanor count without any bond. Brown is charged with first-degree murder in state court and a federal count in connection with Zarutska's death. Both crimes can be punishable by the death penalty.

Brown “should have never been allowed out of the jail. The catch-and-release practices for violent offenders will end today with your support,” Charlotte-area Republican state Rep. Tricia Cotham told colleagues during two hours of House debate. “This heinous act was preventable.”

Public outrage over Zarutska's death intensified with the release of security video showing the attack on the commuter train, leading President Donald Trump and GOP allies to accuse Charlotte and statewide elected Democrats of promoting soft-on-crime policies.

Much of the bill entitled “Iryna's Law” focuses on eliminating cashless bail for many crimes, limiting the discretion that magistrates and judges have in making pretrial release decisions, and laying out when offenders should be examined for possible involuntary commitment.

Brown's mother told media outlets that her son has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Several House Democrats took issue with the soft-on-crime label, pointing out that Republicans have controlled the General Assembly for over a decade. They said the bill falls well short in providing mental health services that advocates say could stop crimes before they occur, as well as funds to hire additional police officers and crisis responders and to house defendants being held for behavioral problems.

“Tough on crime doesn’t only mean let’s pay attention to punishment after the fact,” said Democratic Rep. Marcia Morey of Durham, a former judge. “We grieve the murder. It was senseless, it was horrible. But what you are voting on today does nothing to take it back or would have prevented it. Let’s get smart on crime.”

Unlike Monday's party-line Senate vote, over one-third of House Democrats present joined all Republicans in voting for the bill Tuesday. The margins signal a Stein veto could be overridden.

The bill initially contained language that would require certain appeals for death-row inmates be heard and reviewed by courts by the end of 2027. More than 120 people are on death row in North Carolina, but an execution hasn’t been carried out since 2006.

But an amendment from powerful Senate leader Phil Berger would direct the state Adult Correction Department secretary to find another form of execution if lethal injection — currently the state’s sole method — is declared unconstitutional or is “not available,” potentially if the drugs can’t be accessed.

The secretary would have to select another method that’s been adopted by another state. That could include the use of a firing squad, a method used to execute South Carolina inmates twice this year, or perhaps electrocution.

Capital punishment has been put on hold in North Carolina in part over legal challenges on the use of the injection drugs. Inmate challenges also have occurred under a now-repealed law that has allowed some prisoners to receive life without parole if they could show racial bias was the reason for their death sentence.

"For nearly two decades, judicial and administrative roadblocks have stopped true justice for victims, and it’s time for that to end,” Berger said in a news release Monday.

Democrats blasted Berger’s addition, saying it's wrong and cynical to use the measure to push what one lawmaker called “barbaric” punishments to take someone else’s life.

“No matter what you think about the death penalty more generally, there’s just no question that these methods are risky and have the potential to be extremely gruesome,” said Democratic Rep. Vernetta Alston, an attorney who previously represented death-row inmates in appeals.

The bill was approved while lawmakers returned this week to continued fallout from not having passed a budget for the ninth-largest U.S. state.

The new fiscal year began July 1. State law and a stopgap spending measure have kept North Carolina government operating.

But the state Department of Health and Human Services said $600 million in additional Medicaid funds included in the stopgap measure still left a $319 million shortfall. The agency said it would have to cut Medicaid provider reimbursement rates on Oct. 1 unless lawmakers provided more.

House and Senate Republicans approved competing measures that located more Medicaid money, but they couldn't agree. The Senate plan includes funding it contends was previously agreed upon for building a standalone children’s hospital near Raleigh and rural health care.

The legislature now doesn’t plan to return to Raleigh until Oct. 20.