Judicial Leniency Is Killing Americans
On the evening of August 22, 2025, Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who had fled a war zone looking for a normal life, finished her shift at a Charlotte pizzeria and boarded the Lynx Blue Line light rail. She was minutes from home. Decarlos Brown Jr. — a 34-year-old with 14 prior court cases in Mecklenburg County, including felony convictions for armed robbery, breaking and entering, and larceny — sat a row behind her on the same car. Four minutes after she boarded, Brown pulled a pocketknife from his hoodie and stabbed her three times in the throat. Surveillance cameras recorded every second. He had served five years in state prison for those prior convictions, been released in September 2020, and cycled back through the courts multiple times. At each step, someone in a robe signed off. That chain of approvals cost Iryna her life.
Bartenders get sued when they overserve a patron who then kills someone on the drive home. The principle is basic: if your decision foreseeably enables harm, you answer for it. Judges who release violent repeat offenders enjoy absolute immunity regardless of the body count that follows. I spent several years doing private security and executive protection work before moving into finance and investment management, and I have testified as an expert witness in securities and fiduciary litigation. In both careers, the pattern was identical. When accountability disappears, shortcuts multiply — and someone else pays the price.
Insist that state officials apply validated risk standards before releasing defendants with violent records.
On November 20, 2025, Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana introduced the Judicial Accountability for Irresponsible Leniency Act — the JAIL Act. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee cosponsored the Senate bill. In the House, Representative Randy Fine of Florida led the companion measure alongside Representatives Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Doug LaMalfa of California. The bill is direct: if a judge or government entity releases a covered defendant, someone charged with a crime of violence who already carries a prior violent conviction — and that defendant harms another person while free on bail, the victim or the victim’s immediate family may file a civil suit in federal court for compensatory damages. Judicial immunity offers no protection. The legislation awaits a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with no Democratic cosponsors on record.
The covered class is deliberately narrow. The bill does not reach judges who release defendants with clean records or nonviolent backgrounds. It targets the specific scenario where the risk was already documented: a defendant with a prior violent conviction, released on bail for a new violent charge. That is not a close call. That is a known variable, and the JAIL Act says that if you get that variable wrong and someone dies, you will face consequences.
No single federal agency compiles a national ledger of victims killed by defendants who were out on bail. The data that does exist is grim. Texas State Senator Joan Huffman has documented that at least 162 homicide cases were filed in Harris County between January 2021 and early 2025 in which the suspect was out on bond at the time of the killing. One hundred and sixty-two people. Huffman can supply the list. These are not abstractions.
California ran this experiment at scale. George Gasón became Los Angeles District Attorney in December 2020 promising to end sentencing enhancements for repeat offenders and stop prosecuting a broad category of misdemeanors. The results arrived within a year. Los Angeles recorded 397 homicides in 2021 — the city’s highest total since 2007 and a 53 percent spike compared with 2019. Gascón’s office noted that murder filing rates held at roughly 83 to 90 percent of referrals and that some crime categories later declined. Fair observation. The families who buried their loved ones in those peak years cannot wait for a more favorable data window.
New York’s cashless bail experiment produced mixed results depending on population. Research consistently shows that bail reform increased recidivism for defendants with recent violent felony histories — specifically the group the JAIL Act targets. First-time and low-risk defendants are not the problem the bill addresses. The revolving door turns for a specific clientele: repeat violent offenders who have already shown the courts exactly what they will do when released.
Critics argue that the JAIL Act will intimidate qualified candidates away from the bench or convert federal courts into grievance tribunals. They say judges cannot predict the future. That argument might carry weight in genuinely uncertain cases. A defendant with documented prior convictions for armed robbery, released on bail for a new assault charge, is not an actuarial puzzle. His risk profile is established. Requiring judges to answer in civil court when they release that defendant and he then kills someone does not demand clairvoyance. It demands accountability.
The National Police Association endorsed the JAIL Act in December 2025. Officers who re-arrest the same individuals, file the same reports, and notify the same grieving families are not interested in judicial comfort. They are interested in what actually works on the ground. Their endorsement is professional judgment, not politics.
Congress should move the JAIL Act to a floor vote. At the state level, cashless bail experiments need restructuring around actuarial risk rather than ideological preference. Validated risk-assessment tools exist. Courts should be using them systematically. North Carolina passed Iryna’s Law in December 2025, tightening bail scrutiny for defendants with violent histories. It took a viral surveillance video and a presidential State of the Union address to generate that result. The JAIL Act would codify that standard nationally — without requiring another death to go viral first.
I have sat across the table from families who lost someone to this exact pattern. A known offender. A known record. A system that let him walk again. When decision makers understand they will be held responsible for outcomes, the decisions improve.
Iryna Zarutska came to America for what every immigrant has ever sought: safety, a fair shot, a life worth building. Decarlos Brown Jr., carrying a decade of felony history, has been found mentally incompetent to stand trial in the state case while facing a separate federal indictment. The system that failed to stop him continues to move in slow motion. Zarutska’s family is still waiting for resolution. The JAIL Act will not bring Iryna back. It will not undo the deaths in Harris County or the peak years of the Los Angeles homicide chart. What it will do is change the calculation for every judge who signs off on the release of a violent repeat offender.
Contact your senators. Demand a committee hearing and a floor vote on the JAIL Act. Insist that state officials apply validated risk standards before releasing defendants with violent records. The rule of law holds only when those who enforce it live by the same accountability standards they impose on everyone else.
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Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management. He has a BS from Northeastern University and has completed postgraduate studies at UCLA, UPENN, and Harvard. He writes about issues in finance, constitutional law, national security, human nature, and public policy.
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