By Emma Unger
North Carolina’s 122 death row inmates have spent up to 40 years waiting for execution. Wayne Laws received a death sentence in August 1985, while Joel Valdez was sentenced just this August. Despite the growing number of inmates on the row, North Carolina has not executed anyone since 2006. But the state’s recent update to criminal justice law seeks to change that.
In response to the August murder of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, House Bill 307, later titled “Iryna’s Law,” was proposed in the state legislature and became law less than two weeks later. The law, parts of which went into effect Dec. 1, seeks to toughen North Carolina’s criminal justice proceedings.
Representatives who spoke in support of the bill during the floor debate focused on the circumstances of Zarutska’s death and her alleged killer. The case received national media attention and outrage, as the suspect had a history of mental illness and nearly 20 interactions with the police, including an arrest in January. “He should have never been allowed out of the jail,” Rep. Tricia Cotham, R-Mecklenburg, said during the debate.
Representatives highlighted aspects of HB 307 that are designed to reduce the use of unsecured bonds, implement conduct reviews of judges and magistrates, and improve the involuntary commitment process.
The implications most widely discussed since the law’s passing surround the use of capital punishment in North Carolina. HB 307 removes restrictions on permissible methods of death and aims to resume executions.
While some consider the law to be the first step of North Carolina’s movement back toward a tough-on-crime political stance, it is just the latest of many changes in the state’s history of criminal justice and capital punishment.
North Carolina’s history with the death penalty: A 20-year pause
The use of capital punishment predates the establishment of the United States, and it has been a feature of North Carolina throughout the state’s history. Despite federal death penalty reforms in 1972, complicating factors have led to a decline in the use of capital punishment over the past several decades. North Carolina has not executed anyone for nearly 20 years, with the last implementation of the death penalty taking place in August 2006.
“People are still committing capital crimes. Some people are still being prosecuted as capital offenders,” Matthew Robinson, Appalachian State University professor of criminal justice, said. “Some people have been convicted and sentenced to death, and then they go to death row and just sit there.”
The North Carolina Medical Board’s 2007 adoption of a policy to prohibit state physicians from participating in an execution was a driving factor of the decline. The board said a physician would lose their license for administering lethal injection. Although the policy was later overturned by the North Carolina Supreme Court for being in conflict with state law, the decision laid the first speed bump for the death penalty.
Changes in North Carolina law in the early 2000s also gave prosecutors more discretion on sentencing, allowing them to seek outcomes like life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in capital cases. In response, the number of death penalty sentences decreased statewide.
Perhaps the biggest blow to capital punishment came as research exposed racial biases throughout the North Carolina justice system. Robinson said internal and external reviews of the state consistently supported discrimination in trial and sentencing, which began to gradually turn public opinion against the practice.
“People of color make up less than 30% of North Carolina’s population but over 60% of those on death row,” Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said during the debate on HB 307. Harrison also cited evidence of discrimination in jury selection and that defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty if they are accused of killing a white person.
The Racial Justice Act, ratified in 2009, attempted to address the disproportionate treatment at a state level. It said that if one could prove a statistical pattern of members of a certain race being sentenced to death more often or members of a certain race being excluded from the jury pool more often, the death sentence could be overturned.
“Two hundred-plus people filed appeals under the Racial Justice Act, and this really brought the system to a grinding halt,” Robinson said.
Since the Racial Justice Act’s initial passage, seven challenges have been brought to court. Five resulted in a commuted sentence, and the remaining two were remanded to trial court.
The first four successful claims under the Racial Justice Act were brought to court in 2012. A judge found discrimination in the four sentencing trials and commuted each defendant’s death sentence to life without parole.
A year later, the Racial Justice Act was repealed, but a 2020 North Carolina Supreme Court ruling mandated that appeals filed under the act before the 2013 repeal would still be heard. This February, a superior court judge ruled on the first Racial Justice Act case to move forward since the 2020 mandate. Judge Wayland J. Sermons Jr. found that Black jurors were struck at three times the rate of white jurors in the case of Hasson Baccote, who was sentenced to death by a predominantly white jury in 2009.
Frank Baumgartner, UNC-Chapel Hill professor of political science, said the racial discrimination identified in the five successful trials points to a larger trend. In a study of prosecutorial peremptory strikes in N.C. Congressional District 11, two professors at the Michigan State University College of Law found that eligible Black potential jurors were twice as likely to be struck by state prosecutors than white potential jurors. Similar studies support the finding.
“Under the Racial Justice Act, that should be enough to overturn almost every death sentence in the state because virtually every single one of them had that practice,” Baumgartner said.
The large volume of appeals and the long duration of an appeals process put executions on an indefinite hold.
Despite the pause in executions, about one or two people have received a death sentence every year in North Carolina, and the state still has the fifth largest death row in the country with 122 people.
“Iryna’s Law”: Why now?
On Aug. 22, while Zarutska was on a Charlotte light-rail train, suspect Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly fatally stabbed Zarutska in the neck. The incident was captured on camera and circulated across national media, receiving public comment from politicians, even including President Donald Trump.
Though Zarutska’s death prompted the most recent change in legislation, HB 307 is not the first attempt by North Carolina lawmakers to redirect the state’s path and restart executions.
In 2015, then-Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law HB 774, which said doctors were no longer required to oversee executions. Under the law, nurses, physician’s assistants or emergency medical personnel can carry out an execution. “It can be done by a prison employee who has EMT training,” Baumgartner said. “That would be sufficient, according to the law.”
HB 270, filed and discussed this spring, aimed to add firing squad and electrocution to the list of acceptable execution methods, but it never made it out of the House.
Zarutska’s death didn’t necessarily change statewide opinion, but Baumgartner said the case has been politicized in an important way for legislative changes.
The video of the murder and widespread media coverage stirred a response in people across the nation. The victim, a young daughter and girlfriend on her way home from work, also garnered widespread empathy. In the debate, Cotham urged legislators to bring justice to Zarutska and her family.
Lynda Simmons, an advocate of restorative justice, denounced this way of thinking. In 2004, her son, Brian Eddie Colletti, was killed by a random act of violence. “My grief is my job, and my healing is my job,” Simmons said. “And what [the justice system is] doing has nothing to do with that.”
The suspect’s circumstances of release from jail, under consideration of his criminal record and history of mental illness like schizophrenia, also sparked outrage. Brown had most recently been arrested eight months before Zarutska’s death in January. The defendant was released without posting bail on a promise to reappear in court.
Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, said during the House debate that Brown’s January arrest was for a mental health crisis, not a violent crime, and the magistrate followed the suggested bail guidelines. She also said Brown appeared for his following court date. However, Cotham described the state’s legal system as a “revolving door” for dangerous criminals.
Noel Nickle, executive director of the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the bill’s legislative timeline likely also contributed to its passing. “It was fast-tracked,” she said. “It was railroaded through, and the general population, the constituents, did not have an opportunity to reach out to their lawmakers.”
Lawmakers debated and passed the bill within two days, and it was signed into law by Gov. Josh Stein 10 days later Oct. 3.
“Iryna’s Law”: What does it do?
The amendments that have earned the most attention since HB 307’s passage would effectively resume executions in North Carolina. Two amendments added in the state Senate aim to remove current roadblocks for the practice of carrying out capital punishment. President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, spoke in support of both provisions.
“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 press release after the Senate passed the legislation.
The bill legalized lethal gas and electrocution as methods of execution by removing language that restricted their use. Some scholars find this concerning, as electrocution is ruled unconstitutional in two states, and North Carolina’s history with lethal gas indicates flaws in the method – several execution records describe defendants as writhing in pain and deaths taking up to 32 minutes.
It also goes further to open up North Carolina to other methods. “The law allows the state to use any methods of death that’s being carried out by other states,” Robinson said. “And states are really experimenting with methods of death now.”
Alabama completed the first known execution using nitrogen gas in 2024. The method was most recently used on Anthony Boyd despite his request for the firing squad. Witnesses said Boyd, who unwaveringly claimed innocence, thrashed, gasped and breathed “agonized breaths” for 38 minutes until he died.
South Carolina, one of five states that allows firing squad executions, carried out its third execution by firing squad Nov. 14. “Who knows what might be applicable in the next couple years?” Baumgartner said.
In order to restart executions, HB 307 also requires outstanding appeals, including the 200 appeals under the Racial Justice Act, to be resolved by December 2027. Though Robinson supports the effort to resolve appeals, he agreed with other critics that it’s unlikely all appeals will be resolved in that time frame. Nickle argued the timeline would put a harmful strain on the judicial system.
“Seventy percent of all death sentences in North Carolina, but also nationally, get overturned on appeal, and often it takes many decades for those appeals to get their ways through the court,” Baumgartner said, later adding, “You could say it’s dysfunctional, but still, it takes a long time for those appeals to go through the system.”
Given the typical success of death penalty appeals, many believe the time limit will threaten innocent or harshly sentenced people on death row. “We know that to the degree we limit appeals, to that same degree we increase the likelihood of wrongful convictions and potentially wrongful executions,” Robinson said.
Robinson also said research shows that the death penalty is generally unsuccessful as a system. Executions are costly – a study by the Death Penalty Information Center in 2009 found that North Carolina spent at least $36 million extra over seven years by pursuing the death penalty over life imprisonment – and is not a proven deterrent of crime.
“The 23 states that do not have the death penalty are no less safe. They do not have a higher homicide rate,” Nickle said. “In fact, some studies show that states that do have the death penalty have a higher homicide rate.” Data taken from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports show that states with the death penalty have higher murder rates on average than states without the death penalty every year since 1990.
However, the law goes beyond updates to capital punishment. It also seeks to strengthen bail requirements and hold magistrates accountable for release decisions.
“Defendants with three or more offenses of our Class 1 misdemeanors within the last 10 years, they will now have to have a secured bond or house arrest,” Cotham said.
Under the law, judges are required to include a written statement in the case record to describe why they handled the case in that manner; the Administrative Office of the Courts must create rules of conduct to address conflicts of interest for magistrates; and the chief justice is permitted to initiate suspension of a magistrate.
Robinson said the law institutes mandatory mental health evaluation, and it supports involuntary commitment of defendants with mental illness. However, Morey said the bill does not do enough to address mental illness before a crime takes place.
“Tough on crime doesn’t only mean let’s pay attention to punishment after the fact,” Morey said during the House debate. “It also means, what can we do to prevent the crime? Which this bill completely fails to do.”
In response to the nature of the crime resulting in Iryna’s death, HB 307 also permits committing murder on public transportation to be used as an aggravating factor in a case. And Mecklenburg County, where the crime took place, received funding to add 10 assistant district attorneys and five legal assistants to aid in improved crime response.
Moving forward: What to watch for
North Carolina has yet to see how HB 307’s reforms will play out. Robinson expects to see immediate legal challenges of any new methods of execution instituted in the state, as previously seen in North Carolina and across the country.
Legislators may also attempt to pass accompanying laws in the coming months. “We’ll look to see what else the state does in terms of laws that might be needed to speed up the process of executions, to reduce appeals and things like that,” Robinson said.
Baumgartner said he will watch around the country to see how death penalty law changes in red states compared to blue states. He expressed concern that capital punishment could become a divisive political stance between parties. “It shouldn’t be the partisan color of the governor or the General Assembly that determines who lives and dies,” Baumgartner said. “And that’s potentially what we’re looking at here.”
The North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and other advocacy groups will continue to explore methods to reduce the size of the state’s death row. “If we are to get any closer to the abolition finish line, we have to shrink the size of our death row,” Nickle said. In December of 2024, the coalition successfully encouraged then-Gov. Roy Cooper to commute 15 death sentences.
They will also continue to educate North Carolinians on the racial bias of the death penalty system, the cost of execution and experiences of those impacted by the death penalty. “The death penalty is a long process. It revictimizes people because of the appeals and being brought back into court,” Simmons said. “That’s horrible to keep going through, and it’s horrible for the offender’s family.”
In the coming months, all eyes will be on the state courts to see how many appeals will actually be handled in a timely manner, as mandated by the law, as well as what the courts find from appeals.
“It’s possible that their appeals are successful, and they successfully challenge their death sentence under the Racial Justice Act. Then we’ll see more people removed from death row,” Robinson said. “That might lead to more negative press coverage of the death penalty, and that might weaken public support further.”
