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.
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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.