North Carolina Legislature Passes Sweeping Criminal Law Legislation in Effort to Restart Executions

On September 23, 2025, North Carolina law­mak­ers approved and for­ward­ed to Governor Josh Stein for sig­na­ture House Bill 307 — also known as ​“Iryna’s Law” — which pro­pos­es sweep­ing changes to the state’s crim­i­nal laws. HB 307 impos­es stricter pre­tri­al release con­di­tions, requires invol­un­tary men­tal health eval­u­a­tions for defen­dants under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, short­ens the time­line for cap­i­tal case appeals, and pro­vides an alter­na­tive to the cur­rent method of exe­cu­tion — lethal injec­tion. North Carolina last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 2006. Legislators say the leg­is­la­tion is a response to the death of Iryna Zarutska, who was killed on Charlotte, North Carolina’s pub­lic tran­sit sys­tem in August 2025.

Among the bill’s most sig­nif­i­cant pro­vi­sions are changes to North Carolina’s death penal­ty sys­tem. The leg­is­la­tion estab­lish­es strict time­lines for pend­ing appeals and motions in cap­i­tal cas­es, requir­ing any fil­ing more than 24 months old to be sched­uled for a hear­ing by December 2026, and no lat­er than December 2027. This expe­dit­ed time­line would require North Carolina courts to hear and decide near­ly all of the state’s more than 120 death row cas­es in the next two years, a feat that risks wrong­ful exe­cu­tions in a state where 12 peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed from death row since 1972. In direct response to Ms. Zarutska’s death, HB 307 adds a new aggra­vat­ing fac­tor that allows pros­e­cu­tors to seek the death penal­ty when a cap­i­tal felony is com­mit­ted against some­one on public transportation.

Notably, the leg­is­la­tion also changes the state’s avail­able meth­ods of exe­cu­tion. In line with state law­mak­ers’ efforts to resume exe­cu­tions, HB 307 includes lan­guage that removes the pro­hi­bi­tion against elec­tro­cu­tion and lethal gas, while retain­ing lethal injec­tion as the pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion. If lethal injec­tion is deemed uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, the new bill adds pro­vi­sions that allow the use of any exe­cu­tion method approved by anoth­er state, so long as the U.S. Supreme Court has not declared the method to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The U.S. Supreme Court has nev­er found a method of exe­cu­tion to be unconstitutional.

Critics of this leg­is­la­tion have object­ed to the state’s attempt to restart exe­cu­tions and ques­tioned whether the death penal­ty deters crime. ​“The bill does noth­ing to deter crime or address the root caus­es of vio­lence. It does noth­ing to increase pub­lic safe­ty. Instead, it dou­bles down on a racial­ly biased, error-prone sys­tem that dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly pun­ish­es peo­ple of col­or and peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness,” said Noel Nickle, Executive Director of North Carolina for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. North Carolina Senator Mujtaba Mohammed also expressed con­cerns ahead of the state Senate vote which passed the leg­is­la­tion, telling his col­leagues that this bill ​“exploits grief for head­lines, clicks and votes,” adding that vic­tims ​“deserve dig­ni­ty, not weaponiza­tion. It’s not about pol­i­tics, it’s about respect.”

The bill also seeks to elim­i­nate cash­less bail for cer­tain crimes and restricts the dis­cre­tion of judges and mag­is­trates in pre­tri­al release. The bill estab­lish­es a new pro­to­col requir­ing judi­cial offi­cers to order men­tal health eval­u­a­tions under spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances. Evaluations would be made manda­to­ry if a defen­dant charged with a vio­lent offense has been invol­un­tar­i­ly com­mit­ted with­in the past three years, or if a judi­cial offi­cial believes the defen­dant pos­es a dan­ger to them­selves or oth­ers. State Representative Sara Stevens said this bill is about pre­ven­tion. ​“By requir­ing men­tal health eval­u­a­tions and stricter pre­tri­al con­di­tions for vio­lent offend­ers, we are tak­ing deci­sive steps to stop tragedies before they hap­pen.” The bill also directs the North Carolina Collaboratory to study the inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty of men­tal health and the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem for both juve­niles and adults, the use of house arrest as a pre­tri­al con­di­tion, and meth­ods of exe­cu­tion not already employed by the state.

Gov. Stein has until October 3, 2025, to either sign this leg­is­la­tion, not sign the leg­is­la­tion and allow it to become law, or to veto it. If Gov. Stein vetoes the leg­is­la­tion, the North Carolina Legislature can try and over­ride his veto with a 3/​5 major­i­ty. Three days ahead of this dead­line, Gov. Stein indi­cat­ed he is still review­ing the leg­is­la­tion, telling reporters “[i]t’s just an immense­ly com­pli­cat­ed law, and it’s an immense­ly com­pli­cat­ed sub­ject: how do we pro­mote pub­lic safe­ty, and I want to make sure that the law is mak­ing us safer instead of mak­ing us less safe, and so I’m doing a thor­ough review as I hope peo­ple would expect me to do.”