Reaction comes in from NC lawmakers, NAACP after Stein signs Iryna’s Law
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- Stein signed Iryna’s Law, ordering more mental health evaluations for defendants.
- Republicans hailed the law for tougher prosecution and more Mecklenburg prosecutors.
- Democrats, NAACP and critics condemned executions provision, urged mental health funding.
Gov. Josh Stein’s decision to sign a major crime bill that was drafted by Republican state legislators after the fatal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train prompted a wide range of reaction on Friday.
Stein’s office released a video statement Friday afternoon in which the Democratic governor explained his own varied thoughts on the now-enacted law.
He said a new protocol the law puts in place for judges and magistrates to follow, directing them to order more mental health evaluations for defendants who have suspected mental health issues, was a “good thing.” He said that was why he signed the bill into law.
At the same time, Stein strongly criticized the decision by GOP lawmakers to include a provision in the bill directing the state to adopt an alternative method of execution, in an attempt to restart the death penalty. He said he was “troubled” by the bill’s “lack of ambition or vision” in proposals to help make the state safer.
He urged lawmakers, when they return to Raleigh later this month, to take up his own public safety proposal that calls for more police officers and includes gang prevention and drug addiction treatment efforts. He also said there was much more work for the General Assembly to do on the broad issue of mental health treatment.
Stein waited to sign the bill until Friday, the last of 10 days he had to review the bill before it would have been enacted without his signature. He repeatedly said when asked how he would act, once the bill had been sent to his desk, that he was taking his time to “thoroughly review” it.
Rep. Tricia Cotham, a Mint Hill Republican who championed the bill on the House floor, celebrated Stein’s decision.
In a statement, Cotham said she was “thrilled that Iryna’s Law is now a reality in North Carolina.”
“Finally, we are getting dangerous criminals off our streets so we can make sure no one else suffers the heartbreak that Iryna Zarutska’s family endured,” Cotham said. “I’m especially proud that, through our efforts, this law provides additional prosecutors for Mecklenburg County, giving our local law enforcement the tools they need to fight violent crime.”
House Speaker Destin Hall, the top Republican in the lower chamber, said in a social media post that the bill would make the state safer “by getting career criminals off the street.”
“We will never forget Iryna Zarutska and this is the right first step to ensure what happens to her never happens again,” Hall said.
The N.C. Republican Party called Stein’s decision a “welcome development,” but questioned why Stein didn’t sign the bill sooner.
“As a leader, decisive action was needed,” NCGOP chairman Jason Simmons said in a statement. “Republican legislators acted immediately while Governor Stein chose to belatedly act on a Friday afternoon.”
Rep. Vernetta Alston, a Democrat from Durham who voted against the bill, said the tragedy of Zarutska’s killing “demanded bipartisan reforms and investments in public safety.”
Alston said that, instead, Republicans drafted a bill that “exploited a crisis for political gain.”
She said the bill “falls short of the public safety solutions or funding that North Carolinians deserve.” Alston criticized the GOP for including a provision that seeks to restart executions in the state, describing it as “extreme changes to the death penalty that invite barbaric killings and threaten innocent lives.”
“Now that it is law, Democrats will continue to work toward real changes that protect communities, address mental health, and support victims,” Alston said.
The N.C. state conference of the NAACP, meanwhile, condemned Stein’s decision to sign a bill that it said was “regressive and dangerous.”
“HB 307 is nothing more than cruelty disguised as public safety,” said Deborah Dicks Maxwell, the state conference’s president. “By signing it, Governor Stein chose cruelty over justice, and the legislators from both parties who pushed it forward are equally responsible for this shameful failure of leadership. North Carolina’s death penalty has always been poisoned by racism, and adding new methods of execution is barbaric.”
“Instead of investing in mental health and prevention, our leaders chose to drag us backward into racial terror and political fearmongering,” Maxwell said. “History will remember those who failed the people of North Carolina.”
The N.C. Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, which has worked to stop executions from resuming and lobbied for all of the inmates on death row to have their sentences commuted to life in prison, said lawmakers supporting the bill “have chosen to double down on a system that is racist, error-prone, and deeply unjust.”
Noel Nickle, the organization’s executive director, said the bill “moves our state in the wrong direction.”
“The way to build true safety is through mental health care, re-entry support, violence prevention, and strong resources for survivors and families,” Nickle said. “This bill ignores proven solutions and doubles down on a system that will never deliver justice or security.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2025 at 5:32 PM.
