Cooper’s COVID settlement list gets probe
A.P. Dillon
North State Journal
April 30, 2026
A legislative subcommittee to investigate former Gov. Roy Cooper’s COVID-era “secret reentry settlement list” was announced last week.
Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) and House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Granite Falls) both issued similar press releases last Monday on the creation of a Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations, Subcommittee on Prisons.
“Roy Cooper opened the floodgates and then did the bare minimum to inform the public about the criminals being released into their communities,” Berger said. “He made every effort to hide what he did, and Republicans in the General Assembly are going to hold him and Gov. (Josh) Stein accountable for releasing violent, repeat offenders and endangering our citizens.”
The releases said the committee would investigate Cooper’s decision “to release more than 4,200 criminals early after settling a COVID-era lawsuit with his liberal allies, including the ACLU and NAACP.”
“Public safety is the most important responsibility of our government,” Hall said. “If Roy Cooper or any other official failed at this most basic responsibility, the people of this state deserve to know about it. The release of violent, repeat offenders back onto our streets is a serious miscarriage of justice. This committee will investigate exactly how these early release decisions were made, who was responsible, and whether proper safeguards were followed.”
The releases note that the individuals on the list were “kept secret until earlier this year, when Gov Ops obtained and released it.”
The full list of names was not released publicly until earlier this year. Not long after, it was discovered that repeat offender Decarlos Brown Jr., the man accused of the Aug. 22, 2025, stabbing murder of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train system, was on the list.
Recent court filings have asked for continuance in the case after documentation provided suggested Brown was incompetent to stand trial.
Prison officials have maintained that Brown’s initial 2020 release after serving his full minimum sentence for armed robbery, plus his Feb. 15, 2021, postrelease supervision reinstatement after a new arrest, were unrelated to Cooper’s prisoner settlement and would have happened anyway.
According to Berger and Hall, the subcommittee will look at the release conditions and parole of the prisoners on the list, as well as explore Stein’s role since he was the attorney general at the time and his office represented Cooper in both the lawsuit and settlement.
Sen. Buck Newton (R-Wilson) and Rep. Brenden Jones (R-Columbus) will be the chairs of the new subcommittee.
The other subcommittee includes eight Republicans and four Democrats: Sens. Lisa Barnes (R-Nash), Woodson Bradley (D-Mecklenburg), Danny Earl Britt Jr. (R-Robeson), Warren Daniel (R-Burke), Terence Everitt (D-Wake) and Amy Galey (R-Alamance); and Reps. Amber Baker (D-Forsyth), Celeste Cairnes (R-Carteret), Grant Campbell (R-Cabarrus), Allen Chesser (R-Nash), Lindsey Prather (D-Buncombe) and Mike Schietzelt (R-Wake).
According to the release by Berger and Hall, the subcommittee will also review the state prison system and other justice-related topics such as “staffing, healthcare, facility locations, consolidation, programming, re-entry, recidivism, the Justice Reinvestment Act, and community support.”
The 2021 COVID-era prison settlement implemented when Cooper — the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in this year’s election — stemmed from a lawsuit filed in April 2020 when Cooper was governor by the North Carolina NAACP, ACLU of North Carolina, Disability Rights North Carolina and other groups. They alleged that overcrowded state prisons violated inmates’ constitutional rights by preventing adequate COVID-19 precautions like social distancing.
In June 2020, a Wake County Superior Court judge ruled the state was likely violating the rights of up to 32,000 incarcerated people. The parties reached a formal settlement agreement on Feb. 25, 2021.
Under the deal, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, which is now the Department of Adult Correction, agreed to “early reentry” for at least 3,500 people in custody within six months and at least 1,500 within the first 90 days.
“Early reentry” used a Feb. 15, 2021, cutoff date for eligibility. Early release was defined as releasing inmates at least 14 days before a projected release date, transferring eligible inmates to a community supervision status, or reinstating/restoring inmates to postrelease supervision like parole sooner than scheduled.
Officials stated the releases focused on “non-violent” offenders where possible, but the provisions did not strictly bar all violent cases, and at least 51 life-sentenced inmates were on Cooper’s release list.
Critics, including Republican lawmakers and Cooper’s Senate opponent, Michael Whatley, argue the deal released dangerous offenders into communities, that Cooper’s policies are to blame, and officials misled the public about the inclusion of violent offenders.
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