GOP lawmakers introduce ‘Iryna’s Law,’ focus on pre-trial norms and mental health

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Republican lawmakers are one step closer to passing a bill they say is tougher on crime and also protects innocent North Carolinians.

The bill, Iryna’s Law, is named after Iryna Zarutska, the woman stabbed and killed on a Charlotte train last month.

“When we were drafting this bill, a lot of it was looking at the situation that happened in Charlotte,” Senator Danny Britt said in a committee meeting on Monday.

The man accused of stabbing Zarutska, DeCarlos Brown Jr., had a violent criminal history, but he was recently charged with a nonviolent misdemeanor crime, and released by a magistrate.

Republican lawmakers immediately vowed to draft a bill to keep people like Brown held in jail or treated for mental health concerns.

“This creates, or basically does away with written promises to appear, it creates a new concept of what would be considered a violent offense,” Senator Britt said. “It creates a protocol under which a judicial official would be required to order a mental health evaluation if the defendant is charged with a violent offense and has been involuntarily committed over the last three years.”

The bill also funds new prosecutor positions in Mecklenburg County. Democrats widely agree that those positions should be funded, but they say Republicans also need to fund positions for other court staff as well.

“Investing in prosecutors is absolutely what we need to do, but we also need to invest in public defenders offices who are going to deal with the influx,” Senator Sydney Batch said.

“I’m just worried that we’re going to plug up our court system, our jails, and you’re not going to actually be able to address these situations like what happened in Charlotte recently,” Senator Mujtaba Mohammed said.

The bill also allows judges to take more disciplinary action against magistrates.