Trump’s response to the Georgia indictment was to call it a travesty of justice as he did nothing wrong, but was just “challenging an election.” The accuracy of his claim aside, he’s been indicted, meaning that a grand jury found that there was probable cause to believe that he committed enumerated crimes. An indictment is merely an accusation, and when the accusation is that crimes have been committed, the mechanism by which our society determines guilt is a trial.

There being almost no chance that these accusations won’t end with a jury trial, unless dismissed before trial, Trump’s fate will be determined by twelve good citizens and true. This, Jesse Wegman contends, is the legitimate means by which guilt is decided.

A criminal jury, on the other hand, will not only determine Mr. Trump’s fate; it will do so, as the watchmaker pointed out, as one of the purest distillations of democratic self-government. A dozen randomly selected citizens, notified by mail to come down to the courthouse, will decide on the guilt or innocence of a fellow citizen, who happens to be the former president.

The watchmaker reference points to the 1957 movie 12 Angry Men, and the scene where one of the jurors admonishes his fighting fellow jurors to remember why they are there and to fulfill their responsibility. In Georgia, unlike dubious claims elsewhere, the jury pool will consist of people of various views of Trump, both positive, negative and nuanced. Why shouldn’t they be trusted with the awesome responsibility of holding the state to its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?

Unlike most jurors, those chosen to serve in the Jan. 6 cases will be very familiar with the defendant. As human beings who lived through the last eight years, they may well have pre-existing feelings about him. But like all jurors, they will be bound by the applicable law, and by strict rules of process and evidence designed to filter out those prejudices. Mr. Trump will enjoy the presumption of innocence as well as all the protections the Constitution guarantees to criminal defendants, including the right to due process, the right not to be a witness against himself and the right to be tried by a jury of his peers.

This may be little comfort to him, but it should be a great comfort to the rest of us.

No one wants to be indicted, unless, of course, there are tee-shirts and beer koozies to sell, since one can’t be convicted if uncharged. But he is charged, and regardless of whether you choose to believe this is just a political gambit or that it’s unfair since others you want to be charged with the same desperation as the #Resistance sought Trump’s indictment, there was certainly probable cause to do so. Whether the bad things he did were crimes will be left to the jury, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do bad things.

Juries aren’t perfect; no human endeavor is. But in their effort to find the facts and apply the law they bring us closer to an agreed-upon truth than any other method yet devised, and certainly far closer than the scrum of partisan politics does.

Not only aren’t juries perfect, but neither are trials. Jurors are admonished to decide the case based solely on the evidence presented in court. That evidence is constrained by the judge’s rulings, by its availability, by the skill and persuasiveness of the prosecutor and defense counsel, or lack thereof. But these factors apply to all trials, to all jury verdicts, and fortunately for this defendant, he has the wherewithal from tee-shirt sales to retain excellent counsel to zealously defend him.

Even Jesse, who will never invite Trump to his home for dinner and will never be invited for a round at Bedminster, recognizes that the legitimacy of a jury trial means that the verdict is not a forgone conclusion.

Clearly, a jury may acquit Mr. Trump. That’s the risk we take by trusting one another to render verdicts. It’s what happened in “12 Angry Men,” after Henry Fonda’s character, who began as the sole not-guilty vote, gradually convinced the other 11 jurors to reconsider whether the prosecution had really proved its case. His point wasn’t that he was right and they were wrong, but that there was enough uncertainty, enough reasonable doubt, not to convict. “I don’t really know what the truth is,” he said to the last few holdouts. “I don’t suppose anybody will ever really know. Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we’re just gambling on probabilities.”

And that is the point of a trial. Trump isn’t on trial in Fulton County, but the state is. The state has accused him of the commission of crimes and it must prove its accusations to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. Trump can defend himself, but he can also sit there with his arms folded and see whether the state can prove its case. He has no burden but to show up. He can defend. He can testify. He can call witnesses in his defense, but he doesn’t have to.

This is what it means to live in a society governed by the rule of law. In the form of the jury, we briefly create a world in which facts and law, rather than prejudices, have a chance to carry the day.

Many will refuse to accept the verdict, whether it’s for conviction or acquittal. Some won’t care either way. But this is the system by which criminal accusations are decided, and they are ultimately in the hands of twelve very serious, very hard-working, very responsible people who will do everything necessary to fulfill their responsibility. They may convict. They may acquit. Regardless, their verdict should not be feared or hated, as this is the way such matters are decided in America.