Republican leaders in the North Carolina General Assembly are vowing to take action to prevent future incidents like a high-profile August stabbing on Charlotte's light rail system.
During a Thursday press conference, Speaker of the House Destin Hall and Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger rattled off a number of potential options for the legislation, which, they said, can prevent future incidents like the fatal attack on Iryna Zarutska.
Berger or Hall raised potential provisions Thursday including revitalizing use of the death penalty in North Carolina, changing how magistrates are appointed, giving the legislature some kind of oversight over magistrates and preventing North Carolina's governor from forming task forces that suggest criminal justice reform.
The General Assembly is scheduled to return for a brief session during the week of September 22. That is when Republican leaders intend to take up the bill.
"We must deliver justice for Iryna and the countless families across our state that have fallen victim to a justice system that does not support them and does not keep them safe, and the bill we will bring forward later this month will play a vital role in that. But it's just a first step," Berger said Thursday.
Legislators are still figuring out exactly which provisions to include in the bill later this month.
Berger and Hall vowed to act after seeing footage of the stabbing murder of Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, on board a Charlotte light rail car.
Security footage of the murder shows Zarutska entering the light rail car at about 9:55 p.m., wearing what appears to be a uniform from a nearby pizza restaurant. She is shown sitting down in the row in front of a man police have identified as Decarlos Brown Jr.
About four minutes later, Brown is shown standing up, unfolding a pocket knife and stabbing her three times. Zarutska died from her wounds.
Brown has been charged with first-degree murder in North Carolina's court system and also faces a federal charge of committing an act causing death on a mass transit system.
Brown had previously faced state charges 14 times. At the time of the stabbing, he was free on a written promise to appear on charges of misuse of 911.
More attention to bail decisions?
Hall sharply criticized Magistrate Teresa Stokes' decision earlier this year to let Brown sign a written promise to appear after he was charged with misuse of 911 instead of requiring that he post a cash bail.
"An individual who could have been given a secured bond, meaning they would have had to have paid some amount of money ... or get a bond to get out of jail. And this person, instead of being required to do that, was allowed to sign a piece of paper and walk out of that jail," Hall said.
When someone has a violent felony on their record and faces new charges, Hall said, they should not have the option of leaving jail without posting a cash bail. Brown, for instance, was convicted of robbery with a dangerous weapon in a 2014 incident.
Hall also called for more oversight over magistrates, saying that Stokes should have more thoroughly considered Brown's criminal history.
Legislators are looking at how magistrates are selected in North Carolina and whether lawmakers should have some kind of oversight over them, Hall said. Right now, magistrates are nominated by the clerk of superior court and appointed by the senior resident superior court judge, with oversight conducted by the chief district court judge.
"When we have magistrates who are asleep at the wheel, like this one obviously was, we've got to make a change," Hall said.
Berger, for his part, suggested preventing the governor's office from creating panels like the Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice that former Governor Roy Cooper founded in June 2020 in the wake of the Minnesota murder of George Floyd.
It is unclear whether preventing such task forces would have made a difference in cases like this one because the legislature sets criminal justice policy in North Carolina and, as a matter of timing, the Cooper-appointed panel did not make its initial recommendations until December 2020, three months after Brown was released from prison on the robbery charges.
Still, Berger said, those recommendations could carry weight in some criminal justice decisions.
"What they do is they reflect an attitude on policing, an attitude on criminal justice, an attitude on how things ought to be taking place. And these attitudes, in many respects, are the things that inform the kinds of decisions that were made by the magistrate in this case and by other magistrates of the same political ilk," Berger said.
Berger also said he is considering ways to restart use of the death penalty in North Carolina. Nobody has been executed in the state since August 2006.
Bipartisan compromise possible?
Gov. Josh Stein has urged Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles to "surge law enforcement and security measures" on the city's public transit system in response to the attack, Morgan Hopkins, a Stein spokeswoman, wrote in a statement.
Stein is also considering longer-term solutions.
"Governor Stein is advocating for more funding to recruit and retain law enforcement officers and to train judges and magistrates on best practices for setting release conditions for defenders with mental illness," Hopkins wrote.
Hall said he and Stein spoke at length Wednesday about criminal justice matters.
"I hope that the politics of it don't get in the way of us being able to put something into law statewide," Hall said.
If Stein and legislative Democrats prevent criminal justice changes, Hall added, Republicans could consider passing local bills, which are not subject to the governor's veto.
Legislative Democrats, for their part, called for the General Assembly to increase investments in mental health services.
Brown's family told ABC News he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was refusing to take his medication. When he was arrested in January, they said, Brown told police someone was using a man-made material to control him.
Senate Minority Leader Sydney Batch, a Wake County Democrat, pointed to a 2015 state budget where Republicans cut $110 million in funding for regional mental health centers. When lawmakers return, Batch wrote, they should fund mental health services and local law enforcement.
"For years, Democratic legislators have offered bill after bill, amendment after amendment, to put our tax dollars directly into keeping our streets safe and making mental health a top priority. Republican leaders have shut out these real policy solutions and instead opted to cut funding for mental health and shortchange public safety," Batch said in a statement.
Factor in the U.S. Senate race?
Hall and Berger were joined at the podium Thursday by Michael Whatley, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee who has Donald Trump's endorsement in his effort to secure the GOP's nomination in North Carolina's 2026 U.S. Senate race.
The GOP nominee is widely expected to face Roy Cooper, a Democrat who served two terms as North Carolina's governor and four as its attorney general.
In addition to Zarutska's murder, Whatley addressed the jarring effect Wednesday's murder of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk has had among Republicans.
"Families are hurting right now because of this series of attacks, and as we speak these hard truths we must be clear about the cause: The rhetoric and soft-on-crime policies of the left," Whatley said.
A Cooper spokesman said the former governor has prosecuted violent criminals and signed legislation like 2019's Conner's law that increases penalties for violence against law enforcement.
"DC insider Michael Whatley is lying again because he knows his support for federal policies that cut local and state law enforcement funding is wrong for North Carolina," Jordan Monaghan, the spokesman, wrote in a statement.
Federal, state investigations of CATS
Federal and state officials have responded to the murder, vowing to investigate what led up to the August stabbing.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has launched an investigation into Charlotte Area Transit System, telling Fox News that he anticipates pulling federal funding from the transit system.
"If I find what I think I'm going to find, they are not going to have your federal tax dollars going to their public transportation system. Zero. None. Nada," Duffy said on a Tuesday night appearance on Fox News' Sean Hannity Show.
The 10 Republicans who represent North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives have written a letter to Chief District Court Judge Roy Wiggins calling for the removal of Magistrate Teresa Stokes, who had released Brown on the written promise to appear.
On the state level, Auditor Dave Boliek has announced that his agency will probe CATS' security measures and procedures. That investigation will look at the agency's contract with a private security contract, the data it uses to make public safety decisions and how much money it spends on safety and security.
