Posted on 06/19/2026 11:25:03 AM PDT by DFG
Last August, Decarlos Brown Jr.—a mentally ill repeat offender out on bail—allegedly stabbed 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska to death on a Charlotte light rail train. Video of the shocking murder prompted widespread outrage, pushing the North Carolina legislature to pass a law named for Zarutska and meant to overhaul the state’s criminal justice and mental-health system.
But will Zarutska’s killer be brought to justice? Brown is currently mentally incompetent to stand trial, according to a federal judge. As a result, he may never face a jury. In fact, under current law, he could walk free if the court concludes he will never regain the capacity to proceed.
This perverse outcome is the result of flawed involuntary commitment and mental competency laws. At the state level, these laws allow the release of violent criminals like Brown into communities without court-ordered treatment and supervision. Federal policy is only marginally less bad. Both are in desperate need of reform.
Brown faces both state and federal murder charges. His lawyers have used the same strategy at both levels: seeking a declaration of incompetency to stand trial. Under both federal law and North Carolina law, no person can be tried, convicted, or sentenced while incapable of understanding the court proceedings.
So far, Brown’s lawyers have found success with this strategy. The state case against him was delayed until October after authorities found him “incapable to proceed” in court. Earlier this month, a judge delayed the federal case for the same reason.
Currently, Brown is in federal custody. He will soon be sent to a secure federal medical facility, where he will undergo psychiatric treatment for four months in hopes of restoring his competence to stand trial. Authorities could extend this period if his condition improves.
If the feds can’t restore Brown to competence, they have two options: hand him off to North Carolina or continue to hold him while they determine whether to keep him in indefinite civil commitment under federal supervision. The first scenario is more likely, as the crime happened on city-owned and operated public transportation, and the federal government does not have direct jurisdiction. Even if Brown is found to be unrestorable and referred for civil commitment, the federal government reverts to state laws and practices, which could allow Brown’s case to be dismissed, setting him free.
If he is remanded to state custody, the outcome could be outrageous. Under North Carolina law, Brown could be released back into the community with all charges dropped if further treatment does not restore him to competence. Specifically, if he is found not restorable within the maximum term of imprisonment (ten years for felonies) Brown’s charges will be dismissed and he will be released, with the same untreated mental illness and history of violence.
For a dangerous individual accused of murder, this outcome is unlikely but not impossible. The critical final decision over Brown’s competence to stand trial would fall to the clerk of the court in the North Carolina county where the trial takes place.
By any reasonable standard, Brown is dangerous. But North Carolina’s judgment of what counts as “dangerous” is already questionable. Before he killed Zarutska, Brown had 14 arrests, some for violent crimes, in Mecklenburg County, as well as a schizophrenia diagnosis. Despite Brown’s increasingly erratic behavior and 911 calls motivated by delusions, the state repeatedly charged him without completing a competency evaluation—until Zarutska’s murder.
Nor does the process governing the clerk of the court’s decision inspire confidence. The law doesn’t require the clerk to order a psychiatric evaluation or to consider such an evaluation when determining whether the accused should stand trial. The law simply states that the clerk may order an evaluation and may use that evaluation to determine if someone is capable of standing trial.
North Carolina’s laws make this outcome possible. The state needs to revise them to prevent it from occurring.
A better system would make competency evaluations mandatory, expand them to lower-level crimes when the perpetrator’s mental state is in question, and make the results of the evaluation part of the perpetrator’s permanent court record. These steps would help prevent mental-health issues that cause repeated criminal behavior from spiraling out of control without the court system knowing about it.
When a court finds a defendant incompetent to stand trial and clinicians determine that treatment is not likely to restore competency, residential treatment should be mandatory. Under no circumstances should the state allow an administrator to release a dangerous defendant simply because a court has declared him incompetent.
North Carolina is not the only state where involuntary commitment and mental competency laws need reform. South Carolina, Oklahoma, New York, Kentucky, and Illinois all have deficient laws in one way or another—to name just a few. But Brown’s case may soon place North Carolina’s system at the center of a national firestorm.
During his most recent hearing, Brown reportedly shouted at the judge, raved about having “material in his body,” and threatened to press charges against the FBI. Officials subsequently removed him from the courtroom.
It should never have come to this point. Each one of Brown’s violent crimes and misdemeanors was a missed opportunity to intervene. If just one of Brown’s prior arrests had led to an evaluation and mandatory treatment, Zarutska might be alive today. But with reform, we can save other lives.
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It’s time to go full Pinochet before it’s too late.
Kurt Schlicter recently penned an article that contained this:
“[Society] executes such criminals—not only as righteous retribution and not only as an example to others, but as an act of societal hygiene.”
“societal hygiene” - cleansing of the gene pool is a good thing.
They’ve got to pin it on Cooper.
Why is it always “*allegedly* stabbed”? I mean, they have indisputable video evidence the he stabbed her to death - there is absolutely nothing “alleged” about it. smdh
Average Americans’ natural Christian desire for redemption of the sinner and peace has been increasingly and overtly weaponized by the Left, as a tool of our destruction
What was sold to us in the 1950s and 1960s as “progressive reforms” of criminal justice and civil rights has become a vicious tool of Marxist destabilization and social engineering
“...allegedly stabbed 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska...”
ALLEGEDLY?????????IT WAS ON CAMERA!!!!!!!!!BASTARDS!.............
So as not to taint the jury pool that maybe has not yet seen the video…?
Forget any trial. He's a danger to himself and others and by law can be involuntarily hospitalized. If they won't bring back mental hospitals, designate a portion of a prison as a hospital and keep him there.
Because he’s black and the laws do not apply if the victim is white.
The news media report everything as an alleged action.Until and unless someone is convicted in a court of law.
I’ve heard there are legal reasons for that. Apparently, the media could be legally liable for saying someone is a murderer when he has not been convicted of such a crime.
That's like the bomb squad deciding that if they can't defuse it, they'll just put the bomb back in the city somewhere else and hope that it doesn’t go off.
-PJ
“… allegedly stabbed 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska to death …”
There’s no “allegedly“ about it. It’s on film.
This son of a bitch needs street justice.
True.
I have seen a spiritual road ahead of me with nonviolence enabling the guilty to find more victims----organized religion---- and my need for justice and the suffering of my enemies on the other.
I’d like the courts explain how this benefits Iryna, her family and friends?
How does this protect society in general from Decarlos and others like him?
While we’re at it, have the courts explain their concept of “justice”?
Very good point PGR88.
We view those characteristics as the virtuous Christian traits they are (forgiveness and mercy) yet Leftists view those things as weaknesses to be fully exploited in their quests for domination, subjugation, and power.
It is why, when dealing with the Left one should never practice, conciliation, tolerance, forgiveness, mercy, or apology.
They view all those things as weaknesses to be fully exploited.
Furthermore, they posture to make it look as if they appreciate those things for the virtues they are, yet they only do that in order to convince people they wish to tyrannize as a mechanism to fool them into letting their guard down so they can be even more easily exploited.
As you said, they can and do use our own virtues against us as weapons.
Disgusting creatures.
Some street justice needs to take him out. I’m dead serious.
If we no longer have a justice system, someone else better implement it.
Laws like this encourage vigilantism.
That graph is terrifying. Thanks for posting.
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