State Legislator Demands Chief Judge Wiggins Begin ‘Proceedings’ Against Magistrate Who Released Train Murder Suspect

By
Rachel Stevenson
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It’s hard to imagine a more chilling headline than this one: a 14-time offender, released on nothing but a pinky promise, goes on to murder an innocent woman on a train in broad daylight. But thanks to one North Carolina judge’s reckless leniency, that’s exactly what happened.

Her name was Iryna Zarutska—a Ukrainian refugee who fled a war zone for a better life in America. She survived Putin’s missiles, only to be slaughtered by a career criminal on a Charlotte light rail train. And the worst part? It was 100% preventable.

Decarlos Johnson Jr., the man who stabbed Zarutska in the neck while she quietly scrolled through her phone, had a rap sheet longer than a CVS receipt. Fourteen prior offenses. Violent tendencies. Documented mental health struggles. The kind of walking red flag you’d expect to see behind bars—not strolling freely onto public transportation.

So, how exactly did he get out?

Enter Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes, who—despite every screaming warning sign—decided that Johnson could be trusted to return for his next court date if he just promised he would. No bond. No ankle monitor. No mental health hold. Just a literal handshake with the system.

The result? A young woman dead in her seat. Blood on the train. A man casually walking away from the scene like he’d just finished his morning coffee.

Now, ten North Carolina Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Tim Moore, are calling for Judge Stokes to be removed. And frankly, it’s about time someone started treating this kind of judicial failure with the seriousness it deserves.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just “oops, paperwork got mixed up.” This is a complete breakdown in the justice system—a decision so out of touch with public safety, so drenched in soft-on-crime ideology, that it’s hard to even call it incompetence. It looks more like negligence.

Moore and nine of his colleagues sent a letter to Chief Judge Roy Wiggins demanding that Stokes be removed for what they called a “willful failure” to perform her duties. And they didn’t mince words. The release of Johnson, they wrote, was not only reckless, it was “prejudicial to the administration of justice.”

Translation: this isn’t just one bad decision. It’s a dereliction of duty that cost an innocent woman her life.

And here’s where things get darker.

This didn’t happen in some chaotic blue-state urban circus like San Francisco or Chicago—where crime waves are practically treated like weather patterns. This happened in North Carolina, a state where law and order is still supposed to mean something. Yet here we are, watching the slow drip of the same failed policies creeping into communities that once took pride in not making national headlines for things like this.

What’s even worse, is this ‘judge’ didn’t even pass the bar exam!

You don’t release a 14-time violent offender and act shocked when someone dies. You don’t let mentally unstable criminals roam free and pretend you didn’t see it coming. But that’s exactly the kind of delusion that’s been nurtured by years of leftist “reform” dogma—where judges are praised for “compassion” instead of common sense, and criminals get every break while victims get a body bag.

This wasn’t an “accident.” This was the natural consequence of a broken ideology.

And let’s not forget what this says to every law-abiding citizen in North Carolina and beyond: your safety is optional. Your life is a variable. Your justice is negotiable.

Until people like Judge Teresa Stokes are held accountable—not just scolded but removed—this won’t stop. It’ll get worse. Because in this version of justice, consequences don’t exist until a headline forces the issue.

Well, here’s your headline. The question is: how many more?

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