Had Merrick Garland, the man who should have been justice according to those who cling to the belief that the Supreme Court is illegitimate because then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gamed the confirmation process to deny President Obama’s pick his opportunity, named a special prosecutor in 2020, we may have had a very different situation today. Whether it would be better or worse is another matter, but at least any prosecutions pressed against a president would have come to fruition, one way or the other.

But that didn’t happen. What did happen was the American public, fully aware of what happened on January 6th, on the refusal to return classified documents and the lies to conceal their retention, on the hush money payments to a porn star and the concealment of those payments as legal fees, elected the defendant to be president again. Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSBlog argues that the grandest jury America can offer has spoken, and the verdict is not guilty.

To supporters of Trump, these prosecutions were easily dismissed as nothing more than political prosecutions, the facts notwithstanding. But Trump didn’t win with only the votes of the MAGA faithful, so whatever the rest of his voters believed, it wasn’t that his conduct precluded his being re-elected.

That doesn’t prove that they were brought for political reasons. But the Constitution trusts the judgment of the American people to decide whether the cases against Mr. Trump, as he has argued, were political and calculated to stop him from being elected. The people had plenty of opportunities to hear both sides, and they have spoken. That judgment is the critical check we have against the possibility of politically driven prosecutions of presidential candidates.

Perhaps it’s best understood as some sort of jury nullification, that people understood what Trump did to be wrong, even criminal, but just didn’t care enough to deem that a line that couldn’t be crossed. Others, and I include myself in that group, could not get past Trump’s amorality and fundamental failure of anything remotely resembling integrity.

For many Democrats, dismissing the cases feels profoundly wrong, because they see them as the last chance to bring Mr. Trump to justice. In truth, support for the cases among many Democrats doesn’t seem to be based on confidence in the prosecutors’ legal theories and evidence. Instead, it seems to be driven by politics and hatred of Mr. Trump. That reinforces why they must be dismissed.

Goldstein offers a hypothetical to test this thesis.

Democrats should imagine instead that charges were brought in Texas and Alabama against Joe Biden using novel and untested approaches challenging how he spent money while campaigning. Those cases would be brought by hard-core Republican prosecutors, before juries and judges in deeply Republican counties. The justices of the State Supreme Courts would have all been selected in partisan elections. Every single one is a Republican. That would seem outrageous.

This is, indeed, a serious consideration, and why, contrary to the most hysterical of Trump haters, I agreed with that aspect of the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Trump, that presidents need some level of immunity so they can perform the functions required of them without fear of partisan prosecution, whether for crimes real or imagined. The scenario Goldstein raises is hardly impossible to imagine, and may well come to pass. There is a tendency for partisans to forget that whatever they do to the bad people will be done to them when the winds shift.

But then, what if a president really does commit crimes that are truly worthy of prosecution?

Some people will always be convinced that dismissing the charges will let Mr. Trump get away with crimes. But the Constitution isn’t concerned with preserving a couple of criminal cases. It is concerned with having a system of government that can hold our democracy together for centuries. So far, it has worked, even if our deep disagreements make that hold seem tenuous right now. Inviting prosecutors of the opposing political party to pursue these kinds of charges in the wake of a presidential election can only make things worse.

There is shocking flexibiity within the criminal legal system. Innocent people get convicted. Guilty people get acquitted. Innocent people even get executed, and the Constitution shrugs, at least if you believe Nino Scalia. Is the possibility that Trump will “get away” with his crime the worst injustice that will ever come out of the legal system? That will be better decided a generation from now, when the full consequences are known and understood.

But for now, all of Trump’s wrongs were put before the jury of the American electorate and they rendered their verdict. Goldstein makes a strong argument that it’s time to let it go and accept the fact that the public doesn’t seem to give a damn. After a conviction, there comes an appeal. After acquittal, there is no appeal, whether it’s an acquittal by jury verdict or by presidential election.