Be fair: David Gilbert needs due process from the Parole Board

Convicted terrorist David Gilbert, justly imprisoned for the Oct. 20, 1981, Rockland County Brink’s robbery, where armored car guard Peter Paige and Police Officers Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown were murdered by Gilbert’s fellow revolutionaries, celebrates his 77th birthday in prison in two weeks, but could be released soon after that (right around the atrocity’s 40th anniversary) if the Parole Board buys his malarkey that he’s a changed man.

This week, thanks to the last-minute intervention of Andrew Cuomo just before he resigned, Gilbert will have his first Parole Board hearing before two or three commissioners. It was Gilbert’s deliberate refusal at his trial to reject the legal authority of the court that resulted in his long sentence. He’s evidently had second thoughts.

Either by video or in person at Shawangunk maximum security prison — just an hour up the Thruway from the scene of the murderous Brink’s robbery — Gilbert will have his chance. And here the Parole Board must scrupulously follow the law and provide inmate No. 83A6158 with all the materials he is statutorily entitled to, including petitions to keep him locked up, from his victims’ families and police groups. As of Friday, Gilbert still had not received all of the documents.

The parole commissioners should recognize Brink’s not as an ordinary crime, but a political crime, an act of terrorism and press Gilbert if still believes that he is a “political prisoner,” and if not, when he reconsidered his status. They will then have two weeks to make a decision on freedom or a new hearing in two years, notifying first the inmate and those people who registered as his victims.

Gilbert’s son, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin (who was raised by others when Gilbert and fellow Brink’s terrorist mom Kathy Boudin were arrested) loves his father and wants Gilbert released. Well, the nine children of the three murdered men loved their fathers and they didn’t get visits, except to the cemetery. And their dads, honest men upholding the law, will never come back.