By Karen Marine
There are moments in the life of a nation when the question is no longer whether justice has been done.
The question becomes whether we still possess the courage to ask.
Not because the answers are easy.
But because they are difficult.
Because history has taught us, over and over again, that every institution created by human hands is capable of human error. Courts. Governments. Prosecutors. Legislatures. Prisons.
The greatness of a democracy is not measured by whether it never makes mistakes.
Its greatness is measured by whether it has the humility to confront them.
For forty-four years, David L. Dew has remained inside a California prison.
Forty-four years.
An entire lifetime measured not in birthdays, anniversaries, or family dinners, but in steel doors, concrete walls, and the hope that somewhere, someone would finally be willing to listen.
His supporters have refused to let that hope die.
They have written governors.
They have written legislators.
They have written attorneys, investigators, journalists, civil rights organizations, faith leaders, and public officials.
They have not asked for favoritism.
They have asked for something much simpler.
They have asked that every significant question surrounding David Dew’s case receive a full, fair, transparent, and independent examination.
They continue to ask:
Why has that not happened?
On December 16, 2025, David L. Dew was unanimously found suitable for parole by the California Board of Parole Hearings.
To those who support him, that decision reflected decades of rehabilitation, education, service to others, and personal transformation.
Yet they contend that fundamental questions remain unanswered.
They argue that David was never sworn before the court during the original proceedings.
They point to what they believe are unresolved constitutional and due process issues.
They cite conflicting accounts surrounding the crime, evidence they believe deserves renewed scrutiny, and subsequent proceedings that they believe warrant independent review.
They believe the public deserves to examine those questions—not behind closed doors, but in the light of day.
Because truth should never require permission.
And justice should never fear transparency.
Their concerns extend beyond one individual.
Public reporting by The Guardian and the Los Angeles Times described widespread false-positive drug test results within California’s prison system and the state’s subsequent review of parole decisions that may have been affected.
For David’s supporters, those reports raise a larger question.
If errors capable of affecting liberty can occur on such a scale, how many people deserve another look?
How many families continue waiting?
How many voices have gone unheard?
These questions are bigger than David Dew.
They reach into the heart of every institution entrusted with the power to take away a person’s freedom.
That power carries with it the highest responsibility known in a constitutional democracy.
Not merely to obtain convictions.
Not merely to defend prior decisions.
But to pursue justice.
There is a profound difference between defending a verdict and defending the truth.
The first protects the past.
The second protects the future.
History remembers those willing to confront uncomfortable truths.
It also remembers those who chose silence.
Every generation eventually faces a moment when it must decide whether preserving confidence in institutions is more important than examining the possibility of error.
The strongest institutions do not fear scrutiny.
They invite it.
Because accountability is not the enemy of justice.
Accountability is one of its foundations.
This editorial does not ask readers to reach a predetermined conclusion.
It asks something both simpler and more important.
Look.
Read.
Question.
Examine.
Demand transparency wherever liberty is at stake.
Because justice worthy of public trust should never depend upon silence.
Forty-four years is more than a sentence.
It is a generation.
It is children becoming parents.
Parents becoming grandparents.
Loved ones growing older while waiting for a day they prayed would come.
One day, history will write the final chapter of David L. Dew’s story.
When that day comes, history will also write about us.
It will ask whether we turned away because the questions were uncomfortable.
Or whether we possessed the courage to insist that truth be examined wherever it leads.
For if justice is to mean anything at all, it must never be afraid of the light.
The measure of our nation is not whether we proclaim liberty.
The measure of our nation is whether we protect it when the questions become hardest to answer.
The world is watching.
May history remember that we chose truth over silence, courage over comfort, and justice over finality.
