{"id":3446,"date":"2026-06-28T13:38:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T13:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=3446"},"modified":"2026-06-28T13:38:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T13:38:47","slug":"ncs-executions-stopped-almost-20-years-ago-will-they-resume-under-irynas-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=3446","title":{"rendered":"NC\u2019s executions stopped almost 20 years ago. Will they resume under Iryna\u2019s Law?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After being convicted of murder and placed on North Carolina\u2019s death row, Alfred Rivera managed to escape being executed in 1999.<\/p>\n

Read more Dead tree in remote NC is hiding colony of rarely seen creatures, biologists say<\/a><\/p>\n

He was granted a new trial, where a jury decided evidence proving his innocence was withheld from the first dozen individuals to pass down judgment that would have put him to death. But in the two years he spent on death row, Rivera had come to know the men around him who had also been sentenced to death \u2014 four of whom were executed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember these guys, I knew these guys, you know,\u201d Rivera said during a Tuesday webinar hosted by the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty<\/u><\/a>. \u201cI consider these guys, you know, as friends and associates.\u201d<\/p>\n

North Carolina hasn\u2019t executed anyone since Aug. 18, 2006.<\/p>\n

But nearly 20 years later, anti-death penalty advocates are worried that legislation signed into law last year \u2014 sparked by the fatal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska<\/u><\/a>, a Ukrainian refugee, on the Charlotte light rail \u2014 could see executions resume.<\/p>\n

It took around six months for House Bill 307<\/u><\/a> to be filed, amended and signed into law by Gov. Josh Stein in 2025. The changes established a two-year deadline for post-conviction hearings \u2014 delaying any longer will require a written finding of \u201cextraordinary circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also leaves the door open for the state to use any means deemed constitutional to carry out an execution. Death row inmates could face a firing squad or execution by nitrogen gas if lethal injection chemicals aren\u2019t available.<\/p>\n

The legislation \u201cpoliticized the horrific murder of a woman,\u201d NCCADP Executive Director Noel Nickle told The News & Observer in an interview, but \u201cdid nothing to keep us safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did nothing to address the fundamental inadequacy of providing mental health care for people in need, providing robust reentry services when someone has been engaged with the criminal legal system,\u201d Nickle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s where we need to be focusing our time and our financial resources, not figuring out how to execute people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Months before DeCarlos Brown Jr. stabbed Zartuska in Charlotte, he pleaded with police officers for help during a mental health crisis in which he was delusional, The Charlotte Observer reported last year.<\/u><\/a> Instead, they arrested him for misusing 911 and a judge released him later that day on a written promise to appear.<\/p>\n

North Carolina law previously dictated that death row inmates be executed by lethal injection. But policymakers amended that legislation as part of Iryna\u2019s Law. Now, the state can use any execution method that hasn\u2019t been deemed unconstitutional, if lethal injection is \u201cunavailable for any other reason,\u201d according to HB307.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

Nickle told The N&O she didn\u2019t think anyone realized that Aug. 18, 2006, would be the last execution in the state. She said part of the reason the killings stopped was the method of execution.<\/p>\n

Death by nitrogen gas-induced hypoxia or a firing squad could fill the gap that a lack of lethal injection chemicals left for the last two decades. If one method isn\u2019t available, the state has 120 days to find another one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have prisons that we can\u2019t fully staff,\u201d Nickle said. \u201cAnd so now the Department of Corrections is going to be tasked with figuring out how to obtain execution methods?\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, executions don\u2019t always go as planned. Nickle said no method of execution is completely failsafe.<\/p>\n

Last year, a South Carolina firing squad executed Mikal Mahdi. But an autopsy report shows the shooters \u201clargely missed\u201d his heart, NPR reported.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

And just last month, the state of Tennessee botched the execution of a death row inmate convicted of murder in 1994. State officials tried for over an hour to execute Tony Carruthers with a lethal injection, WLPN News, an NPR affiliate reported.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

HB307 also created a two-year deadline for the review \u201cof all post conviction death penalty cases,\u201d according to Nickle. For a judge to extend that period, it would take an extraordinary circumstance, according to the law.<\/p>\n

Read more Landman’s Ali Larter Addresses How Taylor Sheridan Writes Women on His Shows<\/a><\/p>\n

Henderson Hill, the co-director of RedressNC and a civil rights and capital defense attorney, said it\u2019s hard to place a two-year limit on something \u201cthat\u2019s very complicated and has, you know, just decades and generations of the legal principles and precedents to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to just sort of throw that two-year limit and expect even your friendly judges and DA\u2019s to dance to that tune,\u201d Hill said during the webinar.<\/p>\n

Three capital post-conviction hearings were scheduled for late June in Wake County Superior Court, NCCADP said in a press release. Nickle told The N&O that to her knowledge they\u2019re the first in the state since the legislation was passed.<\/p>\n

She said while it was a \u201cfar more intentional response\u201d than seen elsewhere, she is unsure that other areas of the state \u2014 without the resources Wake County has \u2014 will be able to adhere to those timelines.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s another unintended consequence, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bill was written, the law was ratified without any plan for really how to make this happen in a thoughtful, intentional way,\u201d Nickle said.<\/p>\n

According to the NCCADP, 123 people remain under death sentences in North Carolina.<\/p>\n

Seth Kotch<\/u><\/a>, an author and associate professor of American Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, said there\u2019s been a quiet shelving of the death penalty debate over the last 10 to 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not been a huge outcry, people have not been demanding safety with the death penalty,\u201d Kotch said during the webinar.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same retreat courtrooms went into after an execution in 1961 \u2014 the last one until the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat changed in the early 1970s was the Supreme Court issued a number of decisions that Southerners were told were interfering with their way of life,\u201d Kotch said. \u201cRoe v. Wade legalizing abortion, a decision keeping prayer out of public schools, for instance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kotch said a new narrative emerged that essentially started a \u201cculture war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve seen that in recent months here as well,\u201d Kotch said. \u201cThere\u2019s been a long period of kind of placidity, people not necessarily feeling like their daily lives have gotten worse because we no longer have an operating death penalty, until a flash point allows opportunistic politicians to make changes to the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same cultural factors that led to culture wars in the Civil Rights era could be at play now, according to Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the iconography of the KKK and racist tropes from long ago, that same vibe is what compelled Iryna\u2019s Law,\u201d Hill said during the webinar.<\/p>\n

Opposition to the death penalty is nothing new, Kotch said. He cited a 1928 opinion piece published in The News & Observer that describes the policy as the \u201cstate\u2019s death lottery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile no one thing is absolutely certain to win the grand prize, the record shows that the best ticket a man can hold is that of being a white man,\u201d C.J. Parker Jr. wrote in the piece. \u201cOf the 92 victims of the electric chair only 13 of them have been white.\u201d<\/p>\n

The remaining 79 were Black men, Parker wrote. The piece also chided the newspaper for being \u201cabsolutely silent about\u201d the first execution with the electric chair until just the day before it occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve known about these basic constitutional issues, issues of fairness, for over 100 years, and well before then,\u201d Kotch said. \u201cYet somehow we have continued using it and have continued allowing it to be used.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Elon Musk, Tim Cook share warning on new crisis in America<\/a><\/p>\n

He said \u201cthe story of the death penalty is one of continuity and not change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Advocates warn HB307\u2019s new rules on lethal injection alternatives and review deadlines could lead North Carolina to restart executions and burden courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-todays-edition"],"yoast_head":"\nNC\u2019s executions stopped almost 20 years ago. 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