North Carolina lawmakers continue to investigate the ramifications of a 2021 lawsuit settlement that led to more than 3,000 convicts being released from prison.
House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, told reporters at the state legislature Thursday that he was troubled by a new New York Post report that said at least 18 of those released early from prison were later charged with killing someone.
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The settlement has become a key talking point for Republicans looking to paint former Gov. Roy Cooper as soft on crime as he runs for a U.S. Senate seat against GOP nominee Michael Whatley. The state prison system is run by the governor. Cooper — who leads in the race — has pushed back against that narrative, pointing to his efforts to fight the prison releases in court.
Of the 18 accused killers identified by the New York Post, an analysis of their court and prison records shows a majority of them either were already out of prison before the settlement was signed, or would've been out of prison anyway when they were accused of killing someone, even if they hadn't been included in the early-release settlement.
Republican legislative leaders announced the creation last month of a committee to do its own investigations into the settlement. Hall said he expects the committee to hold its first meeting soon. The legislature has invested substantial resources into the effort, he said.
“There's a lot of people on it,” Hall said. “I know staff has been digging through trying to get the specifics of some of those things, but it seems like every week we learn that it's even worse than what we thought.”
Hall told reporters that he wasn’t familiar with the specifics of the New York Post report, or whether the legislature’s own investigation had found anything different or additional.
“We're just learning about a lot of the specifics, just like everyone else,” he said. “And it's not good news for the state.”
Other than a single committee hearing in 2021, Republican state lawmakers paid little public attention to the Cooper administration’s settlement that released several thousand prisoners — until this year, when Cooper began running for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
Cooper, who served as governor from 2017 until 2025, has a comfortable lead over Whatley, according to recent polls of their race. Whatley’s campaign has sought to make public safety concerns a top issue, including the pandemic-era prison releases.
“This was a deliberate, reckless choice that prioritized violent criminals ahead of innocent North Carolinians,” Whatley said in a written statement Thursday pointing to the new New York Post report. “Roy Cooper failed at his most basic duty as governor, protecting the people of North Carolina.”
Cooper’s campaign disputes that characterization, pointing to his record of fighting to keep convicted prisoners behind bars while he was attorney general — the AG’s office handles every criminal appeal case in the state on behalf of local prosecutors — as well as his actions as governor resisting efforts to release prisoners during Covid-19.
“Keeping the public safe is Roy Cooper’s top priority,” Cooper campaign spokesman Jordan Monaghan told WRAL.
Public records and statements from officials have disproven Republican claims about the settlement, WRAL previously reported.
Covid-era lawsuit
In April 2020, a coalition of civil rights groups sued the Cooper administration in an attempt to reduce Covid-19 infection risk in state facilities. The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, the state chapter of the NAACP and others accused Cooper of failing to protect inmates from the virus and called on him to release certain inmates, such as those who are medically vulnerable or whose sentences were almost over. Spokespeople for the ACLU and the NAACP didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.The Cooper administration initially fought the lawsuit, arguing in court that he had sufficiently protected inmates from the virus. However, a Superior Court judge ruled in June 2020 that the civil rights groups were likely to win their case — indicating he was leaning toward ruling in favor of the activists and ordering the state to release an unknown amount of its 30,000-plus prisoners. Five state prisoners had died from Covid-19 by the time of the ruling.
Rather than risking a trial, Cooper decided to settle the case by agreeing to release 3,500 prisoners. Todd Ishee, then-Commissioner of Prisons, told lawmakers in a hearing shortly after the deal that civil rights groups sought to release even more.
Less than a week after the Feb. 25, 2021, deal, Republican legislators grilled top prison officials about the decision — accusing them of trying to hide details of the releases. State Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke, said at the time that he learned through the media that the Department of Public Safety’s release criteria could allow the release of inmates with violent histories.
"At no time, until you contacted me, was I ever under the impression that somebody who committed a crime against a person would be released under this agreement,” Daniel told WRAL News at the time.
Prison officials mostly chose people who were set to be released within the next year anyway, and sped up their release date. They also counted some people who had already been released, before the settlement, so that the actual number of people being released would be lower.
Cooper has previously said the criteria they used were based on federal rules at the time, for similar prison releases of federal inmates, under Republican President Donald Trump’s administration. Monaghan repeated that assertion Thursday.
“After Roy fought against these releases in court, North Carolina law enforcement officials and parole officers looked to similar criteria President Trump used a year prior when his administration released thousands of federal prisoners due to COVID-19,” he said.
The release of names comes less than a month after Republican state legislators formed a commission to investigate the details of the settlement.
Republicans renewed their interest in the 2021 settlement after learning that DeCarlos Brown — a Charlotte man accused of murdering a young Ukrainian woman on the city's commuter train — appeared on the list of prisoners released early.
Whatley has said said Cooper “bears direct responsibility” for the woman’s death. Brown wasn’t behind bars when the settlement was reached and the settlement had no bearing on whether Brown was free to roam the streets in 2025, public records show.