Senate Candidate Roy Cooper Has Catastrophic Record of Soft-on-Crime Judicial Appointments

Democrat North Carolina Senate candidate Roy Cooper, former governor of the state, has a catastrophic record of soft-on-crime judicial appointments throughout his tenure, which resulted in the release of thousands of criminals, many of whom went on to reoffend.

Cooper’s administration released roughly 3,500 criminals back onto the streets during the coronavirus pandemic after being sued by the leftist ACLU and the NAACP, and as Breitbart News reported, many went on to reoffend. One of the criminals released, for instance, Lucas Shayne Scronce – who was serving time for drug trafficking and possession charges, fraud, and possession of stolen goods – went on to plead guilty in the death of his 16-month-old daughter. He admitted to “using fentanyl before giving the child a bottle prior to her death,” according to local reports.

However, the offenses of Cooper do not end there. He also directly appointed several soft-on-crime judges over his tenure, as he served as governor from January 2017 to January 2025. For instance, he appointed Kendra Montgomery-Blinn in July 2023 as a district court judge in Judicial District 14, serving Durham County. She released one  criminal, Shyrone Evans, on a $15,000 bond after he was arrested for strangling and punching a woman he was dating. He went on to kill a man who was on his way to receiving dialysis. A 2025 article from the News & Observer revealed that Evans “had already collected at least 37 felony and 9 misdemeanor charges since July 2023 in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Durham.”

Then there is Peter Knight, whom Cooper appointed in 2018 as a superior court judge for District 29B, covering Henderson, Polk, and Transylvania counties. The following year, he drastically reduced bond for Krista Noelle Madden – a mother accused of trying to kill her 7-week-old daughter. According to the Citizen Times, “Police say Madden herself threw the baby over the ravine’s edge, though Madden described ‘placing’ the baby on the ground in interviews with police, according to search warrants.” Knight reduced her bond from $750,000 to $100,000.

That same year, Cooper appointed John Arrowood as a North Carolina Court of Appeals judge. Arriwood eventually joined a decision to overturn the conviction of a man who pled guilty to two rapes.

And in 2019, Cooper appointed Reuben Young as a North Carolina Court of Appeals judge. He had a hand granting Lorenza Inman, who was convicted of attempted first degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon, with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and possession of a firearm by a felon, a new trial. Inman went on to allegedly murder his girlfriend.