The group of North Carolina senators on Wednesday endorsed changes to the state’s process for evaluating criminal suspects for mental illness that have been proposed by the House of Representatives. 

The Senate Healthcare Committee gave a favorable report to House Bill 1104, which attempts to shift some mental evaluations out of emergency departments and expand the number of people who can conduct them. The bill would also allow more North Carolinians who are under involuntary commitment orders to undergo mental health treatment outside of psychiatric facilities. The bill goes next to the Senate Judiciary Committee for further review.

The House passed the bill 100-10 earlier this month at the urging of state Rep. Tim Reeder, a Pitt County Republican and physician who wrote the legislation after holding multiple hearings on the state’s practices for treating criminal suspects who suffer from mental illness. 

Reeder and others in the House began reviewing the state’s laws after the August death of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian who moved to Charlotte in 2022 and was fatally stabbed on a city train. DeCarlos Brown, the man charged in her death, was deemed incapable of proceeding following a mental evaluation.

The General Assembly in October approved a judicial reform package titled “Iryna’s Law,” an attempt to keep more suspects in custody while awaiting trial. Brown had been arrested multiple times prior to Zarutska’s death. 

However, legislators faced pushback for some of the new rules. For instance, hospital representatives took issue with a requirement for certain criminal defendants — who have undergone an involuntary commitment within three years of their arrest for a violent crime, or who judicial officials believe to be a danger to themselves or others — to be transported “to a hospital emergency department or other crisis facility” for a psychiatric evaluation. 

Hospital leaders said they don’t want the suspects evaluated in emergency departments, fearing they could endanger patients and hospital staff. Hospital leaders said the evaluations should be conducted in jails — a suggestion Reeder incorporated into his bill.

“You wouldn’t want someone who has a violent history sitting next to your child who’s getting treated for an ear infection,” Reeder told members of the Senate Health Committee Wednesday. 

The state’s sheriffs — who control county jails — initially balked at the suggestion to conduct more mental evaluations in jails. Representatives for the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association, an advocacy group for the state’s sheriffs, said hospitals are more appropriate settings for medical care. 

The association later said it would support the plan so long as it only applies to suspects who are already in custody. Reeder alluded to the association’s concerns during Wednesday’s hearing, calling them legitimate. Reeder said he hoped to implement his proposals by the end of the year, but that logistical hurdles will make that deadline difficult to meet. 

Members of the Senate committee praised Reeder’s efforts, though Democrats echoed the same concerns as critics in the House. Critics say the bill doesn’t do enough to bolster services at the state’s psychiatric facilities: Broughton Hospital, Central Regional Hospital, and Cherry Hospital.

The bill calls on the Department of Health and Human Services — which runs the state’s mental hospitals — to study why it has staffing shortages. Democratic lawmakers have blamed the shortages on low pay and competition from the private sector, calling on Republican lawmakers to approve big pay increases.

“You said we’ve asked the department to come up with a plan for staffing at the state mental hospitals, so that we can open up those beds,” Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe, said to Reeder. “I hope we are also giving them the resources they need to do that. My guess is: They’re not just not staffing it because they don’t want to, they’re not staffing it because they don’t have the resources to do that.”