Articles Tagged with House Bill 307 NC

Mecklenburg County bond hearings follow the North Carolina pretrial release law, yet the way those bond hearings are scheduled, reviewed, and decided in Charlotte reflects the size of the 26th Judicial District, the structure of its felony dockets, and recent statutory changes (Iryna’s Law) that raised the bar for release in certain categories of cases. The result is a process that is more structured and, to some extent, substantively different from those in many other counties.

The statutory framework governing bond hearings changed materially with the enactment of House Bill 307, commonly known as Iryna’s Law, which took effect in North Carolina on December 1, 2025. That legislation revised the pretrial release statutes and expanded the set of cases in which judges begin from the position that release is not appropriate unless the defense provides credible information to the contrary. For defined violent offenses and certain repeat or high-risk charge patterns set out by statute, the law now directs the Court (the Judge) to apply a rebuttable presumption that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure both court appearance and public safety. As a practical matter, that change did not eliminate bond hearings, yet it altered their starting point. Instead of asking what conditions are sufficient for release, the Court must first decide whether the presumption against release has been overcome.

That presumption is not rhetorical or merely symbolic. It functions as a rule of decision that shifts the practical burden at a Mecklenburg County bond hearing. Defense counsel no longer argues, in every instance, from a neutral baseline that favors the least-restrictive release. The hearing instead begins with the court directed to treat detention as the default posture, for certain defined offenses and offenders, unless the defense produces reliable facts showing that structured conditions of release can address appearance risk and community safety. A release order in that setting requires an affirmative judicial finding, supported by the record, not a routine adjustment of bond terms.