By Sarah David
I’ve always loved how the Jewish holiday of Purim usually falls during “Women’s History Month.” But as a mother, Purim has historically presented a strange challenge for me in explaining the holiday to my young children.
Purim celebrates the bravery of Queen Esther, who risks her life to call on her husband, the King of Persia, to save her people, the Jewish people, from a plan to kill all the Jews in their kingdom.
The challenge is that my children struggled to envision a world where women are powerless. They struggled to understand Esther’s bravery when their world was so full of strong women.
That was until I ran for office. I am proud to be running for State’s Attorney in Baltimore County. As a career prosecutor who has led political corruption and police misconduct prosecutions across Maryland, I am excited to bring a modern, preventative approach to public safety in a county that has only had two elected State’s Attorneys since 1975.
I am proud to have my children by my side as we knock on doors and convince voters it is time for change and that we can build a safer county together.
However, this brave moment to convince my community to embrace a new vision for a safer Baltimore County has exposed my children to what so many women in my and my mother’s generations experienced as we climbed our career ladders.
Emails from constituents calling me derisive expletives and social media criticism are all part and parcel of public service. But a public event where a man told me to sit down so he could hear from a real lawyer (an older male colleague) serves as a reminder of why we must still celebrate Esther.
My opponent telling voters that I cannot do this job because I am a mother, and therefore am not committed to my work, is why we must celebrate Esther. Baltimore County remains the only county in the state without an elected woman serving on our County Council, and one of the few where women have fallen behind when it comes to seeing justice for crimes against them.
As Esther teaches us, it is time to take the risk to bring the change the women in this county deserve.
A key illustration of this failure when it comes to women in the criminal justice system is the refusal to investigate rape kits. The Maryland Sexual Assault Kit Initiative shows that, as of late 2025, Baltimore County had hundreds of unsubmitted or partially tested sexual assault kits still on inventory, even after years of federal funding and “reform” rhetoric.
Specifically, 514 unsubmitted kits and another 68 partially tested kits remained unprocessed, despite the critical nature of that evidence to prosecution and public safety.
These numbers are more than statistics. They represent real survivors, people who complied with every demand of an intrusive forensic exam, handed over the most intimate evidence of their trauma, and then watched the system treat their suffering as an afterthought.
The consequences are concrete. Survivors have gone decades without answers, and the State’s Attorney’s Office has repeatedly refused to support initiatives to ensure the kits are tested and investigated, pointing to resource constraints.
This perspective reveals a failure to truly understand that the moral cost of ignoring rape evidence is immeasurable.
DNA from tested kits isn’t just investigative fodder — it’s often the difference between an offender walking free and a survivor seeing accountability. To delay or ignore testing is to tacitly tell victims that their trauma is less pressing than other crimes, and that in Baltimore County rape prosecutions can be deferred indefinitely.
Prosecutors control when and how evidence is submitted for testing, how aggressively detectives are directed to pursue forensic leads, and whether victims are treated as partners in justice rather than inconvenient statistics. Yet under the current leadership, speed and transparency in testing sexual assault evidence seem to take a backseat to inertia and forbearance.
We celebrate Queen Esther during “Women’s History Month” despite all of our progress because there are still moments when a woman has to take a risk to protect her people. This is one of them. Women in Baltimore County deserve justice.
I am so fortunate my children see the powerful women surrounding them and question the courage it takes to enter spaces we have not historically been in. They wonder why anyone would not think I was a “real lawyer” or why there would not be more women representing us in our government. My mother’s generation remembers it well, and my hope is by the time our children grow old enough to understand why we celebrate Esther, I — along with so many men and women committed to justice in our county — have helped build a world where their children cannot conceive of a society with women being powerless.
A Pikesville native, Sarah David is running for the office of State’s Attorney for Baltimore County. She is currently serving as deputy state prosecutor in the Office of the Maryland State Prosecutor.
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