White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addresses the killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, N.C., during a news briefing. Republican state lawmakers in North Carolina are considering legislation that would tighten pretrial release rules and require people to post money bail for certain offenses. The legislation also also directs the state to pursue alternative methods of execution. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“There will be no firing squads in North Carolina during my time as governor,” Governor Josh Stein said Oct. 3 after signing a criminal justice bill into law in response to the tragic murder of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on the Charlotte light rail. A statement we can’t believe had to be uttered in 2025. Iryna’s Law contains valuable legal system reforms, including mandatory mental health evaluations and a review of pretrial release processes. However, the law not only reinstated the death penalty in North Carolina—which had been halted for 20 years—but also allows convicted individuals to choose between the electric chair, lethal injection, or a firing squad.
One of the bill sponsors, Representative Reece Prytle, stated the bill “seeks to restore the death penalty as a deterrent and an option for prosecutors across the state.” In the 1976 Supreme Court ruling for Gregg v. Georgia, the Court noted that there may be several purposes for the death penalty, including deterrence. However, there is little evidence to support the claim that capital punishment deters homicide. In fact, some studies have found that homicide rates are higher in death penalty jurisdictions. This suggests that we may be heading in the wrong direction if the goal is to prevent incidents like Zarutska’s murder from happening again…