Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Anti-Trump protesters hold placards outside Trump Tower in New York City, the day after a guilty verdict in the former U.S. president's criminal trial over charges that he falsified business records to influence the 2016 election, May 31, 2024.

The “new normal” is settling in. Former President Donald Trump is now a convicted felon, pending appeal, after Thursday’s verdict in the New York trial centering on hush money payments to a porn star. Supporters are rallying to his side, donating money, and raising loud objections to what many of them see as a rigged legal system.

Meanwhile, Democrats who have long dreamed of seeing Mr. Trump behind bars – still improbable but not impossible – are cheering. Others, including President Joe Biden, are playing things more cautiously. Candidates in both parties running for other offices downballot are also having to strategize around the new reality of a ticket-topper convicted of 34 felonies. 

But in the Trump-Biden presidential rematch that’s shaping up, there’s at least one point both campaigns agree on: that the “real verdict” will come on Election Day, Nov. 5. And with a little over five months to go, these early days posttrial are a time for wariness, not easy assumptions about the impact of Mr. Trump’s conviction, political analysts say. 

“All of us who knew that there was no way [Mr. Trump] could be elected after the ‘Access Hollywood’ video in 2016 are being a little cautious right now,” says Dan Schnur, communications director for Republican Sen. John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign and now an independent. 

That video, in which Mr. Trump boasted crudely about grabbing women, was leaked a month before the 2016 election, and appeared to doom the Republican nominee’s chances of becoming president. Indeed, that November he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton, but won in the Electoral College. 

Julia Nikhinson/AP

Supporters of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump demonstrate outside Trump Tower in New York, May 31, 2024, a day after a New York jury found Mr. Trump guilty of 34 felony charges.

Polls show Trump’s base remains loyal

Today, in the RealClearPolitics average of major polls taken preconviction, Mr. Trump has a razor-thin lead over Mr. Biden. All eyes are now on postconviction surveys. An overnight poll by YouGov of more than 2,600 U.S. voters found that half of Republicans are even more likely to vote for Mr. Trump since the verdict, but the longer-term impact of the verdict on voter behavior remains to be seen.

Plenty of polls taken pre-verdict showed a small slice of the GOP electorate unwilling to vote for Mr. Trump if he was convicted, or at least reconsidering support for him. But such polls can’t simulate the real-world conditions of news coverage and the responses of public figures, including Mr. Trump, experts on polling say. 

On Friday, the former president spoke for over a half hour at Trump Tower in New York, calling the trial “rigged” and the judge who presided the “devil.” Mr. Trump also said he would appeal the conviction, which included a finding of guilt on 34 counts of falsifying business records over hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had a sexual encounter. 

For more than six weeks, the trial required Mr. Trump to be present in the courtroom. Now that it’s over, he has more time to campaign – albeit with uncertainty about what a July 11 sentencing will bring. This means more opportunity to refresh public impressions and make his pitch for another term.

For Democrats, the job now is to talk about the hush money case in the context of the other three criminal cases pending against Mr. Trump, says Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist. Those cases center on alleged mishandling of classified documents, his alleged effort to overturn the 2020 election, and a racketeering case in Georgia over his alleged attempt to overturn that state’s 2020 election result.

“Is this someone you really want to trust your future to?” she suggests as a campaign message.

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

The day after a guilty verdict in his criminal hush money trial, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at Trump Tower in New York, May 31, 2024.

Democrats to focus on top-of-mind issues

More broadly, Ms. Finney and others suggest, Mr. Biden and the Democrats also need to focus on the issues that are top of mind for many voters, such as the economy. 

Mr. Schnur, the former GOP strategist, notes that Mr. Biden has been struggling with elements of his base for months over issues such as the war in Gaza and climate change. The risk to Mr. Biden is that they don’t vote or vote third-party. 

“Many of those disaffected progressives say that, because Biden hasn’t been as aggressive on their issues as they want, there’s no real difference between the two candidates,” says Mr. Schnur, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications. “The question is whether the Biden campaign can use this [verdict] to convince the Democratic base that there is a real difference between him and Trump.”

So far, both Mr. Biden and his reelection campaign have been reactive. Right after the verdict, the White House counsel’s office said simply, “We respect the rule of law, and have no additional comment.” The Biden campaign fundraised off the verdict, sending emails stating that the only way to keep Mr. Trump out of office is “at the ballot box.” 

On Friday, Mr. Biden himself commented on the Trump verdict for the first time, calling Mr. Trump’s morning remarks “unhinged.” 

“Downballot” impact and fundraising

But another event Friday brought home the challenge the president faces in holding the Democratic coalition together: the departure of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia from the party ranks. Senator Manchin announced that he has re-registered as an independent, raising speculation he could run for governor or even reelection to the Senate under that banner. 

Andrew Harnik/AP/File

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia (left) laughs during a Senate Appropriations hearing in Washington in May 2023. Senator Manchin announced this week that he is leaving the Democratic Party to register as independent.

For some Republican candidates downballot, the Trump conviction may prove a double-edged sword. In solid-blue Maryland, popular former moderate GOP Gov. Larry Hogan is running a competitive race for the Senate, and needs to attract both pro-Trump Republicans and anti-Trump Democrats in November. 

As Thursday’s verdict was about to be read, Mr. Hogan – a Trump critic – urged Americans to “respect the verdict and the legal process.”  Not long after, senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita fired back: “You just ended your campaign.”

For other Republicans, the Trump conviction has produced a reported windfall in fundraising – as it did for Mr. Trump himself. On Friday morning, the Trump campaign said it had raised $38.4 million following the verdict, much of it reportedly from first-time donors. Traffic to the fundraising site was so strong that it temporarily crashed, according to the campaign. 

In Arizona, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who is running against former TV anchor and Trump loyalist Kari Lake in the GOP primary for Senate, said his fundraising page crashed, too.

“It’s not just Trump. People like myself are benefiting” from the verdict, Sheriff Lamb said Thursday. “I just did a fundraiser tonight and these folks were upset.”

Staff writer Story Hinckley contributed to this article. 

The news that President Joe Biden will authorize Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weapons to strike inside Russian territory along the Kharkiv region’s front lines was received here Friday with relief and appreciation – but also regret.

Just the night before, Russian glide bombs launched from aircraft in Russian airspace struck in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, located just 19 miles from the Russian border. At least six civilians were killed when an apartment building was hit, although a search for the missing continued Friday.

Earlier this month, two guided bombs struck a building supply superstore crowded with civilians – including shoppers picking up materials to repair the damage inflicted as Russia has picked up the pace of its attacks on the Kharkiv region. At least 16 were killed in that attack, and dozens injured.

If Mr. Biden’s decision had come earlier, some here say, maybe some of these tragedies could have been avoided.

Still, the predominant sentiment among military and other sources here is a confidence that Ukraine will be able to reap the benefits of this decision by targeting more effectively the Russian forces and installations concentrated just across the international border.

And that in turn should allow Ukrainian forces to stymie the surprise offensive that Russia launched into the Kharkiv region this month.

Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor

Col. Yurii Povkh, spokesperson for the Kharkiv Operational Tactical Group, says President Biden's decision to allow use of U.S. arms to strike across the border into Russia will boost local morale.

“We have to be able to strike the air bases inside Russia where the aircraft that launch these bombs that are hitting in Kharkiv take off. We have to be able to target the bases where their troops that are carrying out their offensive gather and prepare to attack our villages,” says Col. Yurii Povkh, spokesperson for the Kharkiv Operational Tactical Group.

“It’s much more efficient and effective to fight the reasons we’re taking these hits,” he adds, “than to simply fight the consequences,” such as the Russian offensive, which left border villages scorched and hundreds of civilians frantically evacuating to safer ground.

Scorched earth

“We’ve been waiting for this permission” from Mr. Biden, says Gregory Shcherban, a volunteer with Kharkiv Media Hub, a local nongovernmental organization that helps international reporters get the Kharkiv story. “Of course we might have avoided some of these tragedies if this had come earlier.”

Mr. Shcherban’s work took him last week to Vovchansk, one of the border villages where Russian forces moved in with a scorched-earth strategy, burning, smashing, and targeting everything in their path. He ended up using his red van to evacuate as many residents as he could – including one terrified farmer’s bleating goats.

“These people fear this will be their last trip from their homes,” he says. “We have to be able to strike the military bases inside Russia where these operations are being prepared and organized.”

Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stands inside a printworks compound, destroyed last week in a Russian airstrike, during his appeal to U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping to join an upcoming peace summit, in Kyiv, Ukraine, May 26, 2024.

President Biden has been reluctant to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied weapons to target military facilities inside Russia over concerns it could lead to a direct conflict between two nuclear superpowers. Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to speculation earlier this week that Mr. Biden’s decision was coming by again warning that any such green light would risk nuclear war.

But pressure has mounted over recent months – from some members of Congress and some NATO countries – for the United States to relax the ban.

In the end, two key factors finally pushed Mr. Biden across the line, some diplomatic analysts believe.

One was the alarming assessment of conditions around Kharkiv that Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered to the president after visiting Kyiv earlier this month. According to officials, Mr. Blinken reported that not just the border region but the city of Kharkiv could fall if Russia’s advance was not effectively countered.

A second concern, some analysts say, was the prospect of dark news about the war in Ukraine landing just as Mr. Biden is to host NATO partners in Washington for the Alliance’s 75th anniversary summit in July.

The limited OK to use the U.S. weapons to strike inside Russia comes even as Ukraine begins to reap the benefits of the $60 billion military assistance package Congress approved last month.

Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor

Kharkiv municipal employees plant flowerbeds in the city's center on May 31, 2024, the day after Russian bombs hit a residential building, killing at least six people.

Along the 900-mile-long front lines in eastern and northern Ukraine, military units that just weeks ago complained of a debilitating lack of artillery shells and other munitions are reporting an ability to once again match their Russian adversaries.

Defensive posture

Pentagon officials say privately that a ramping up of weapons deliveries will take time and will continue well into the summer. And most Ukrainian military analysts caution that the fresh arms deliveries should not prompt sky-high expectations.

“We have to be realistic, at least until the end of summer we will have to be in a defensive position,” says Oleksandr Kovalenko, military and political director of the Informational Resistance Group, a Kyiv-based defense think tank. “We lost too many opportunities and suffered high losses during the months when we were receiving no arms supplies from our partners.”

Mr. Kovalenko says he believes Russia’s aim in Kharkiv is to occupy neither the region, nor a city that before the war counted over 1.4 million residents. “Their objectives are more political,” he says, aimed at disheartening the public, destroying the economy, and thinning out the population.

If that’s the case, President Biden’s greenlighting of strikes inside Russia could be one antidote, Colonel Povkh says.

“People in Kharkiv ask me all the time, ‘When are you going to push these terrorists away from the border and stop these attacks on our homes?’” he says. “I’m sure this [decision] will lift our citizens’ morale and raise their sense of security about living here.”

Oleksandr Naselenko assisted in reporting this story.

Vermont on Thursday became the first state in the United States to demand that oil and gas companies pay for the costly impacts of climate change – a move that many experts say could pave the way for similar legislation across the country.   

Taking many climate advocates by surprise, Republican Gov. Phil Scott allowed passage of the new, bipartisan Climate Superfund legislation, which lets Vermont’s department of natural resources recover costs from those fossil fuel companies responsible for more than 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. The money would go toward climate change adaptation or resilience infrastructure.

Although most experts – including lawmakers themselves – expect a slew of legal challenges to the legislation, many see it as a groundbreaking effort to use a “polluters pay” model to manage skyrocketing expenses hitting state and local governments because of climate change. From revamping stormwater systems to deal with salt water incursion, to repairing bridges and roadways washed out from unusually heavy rain storms, to building new seawalls to protect from stronger hurricanes, municipalities across the country are looking at massive financial outlays.

“States need this money,” says Martin Lockman, law fellow at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law in New York. “States are facing increasing risk of natural disasters. They’re facing chronic pressures from their changing climate that are really going to stress their infrastructure, their economies. ... This is a creative attempt to place the costs of climate damage on the companies whose products produced it.”

Glenn Russell/VTDigger/AP/File

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott delivers his State of the State address Jan. 5, 2022, in Montpelier. Governor Scott said he had deep concerns about the Climate Superfund legislation, and did not sign it. But he allowed it to become law May 30.

First-of-its-kind law likely headed to court

The law will likely be challenged in court – notably by the fossil fuel industry.

The American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying group for the industry, has opposed the new law, saying that it is unconstitutional for a slew of reasons, as well as poor policy.

“This bill is nothing more than an unnecessary new fee on American energy that would only stall the innovative progress underway to accelerate low-carbon solutions while delivering the energy communities need,” says Scott Lauermann, API spokesperson.

The unique legislation expands the “polluter pays” principle, a central tenet of U.S. environmental law that essentially says polluters are responsible for cleaning up the messes they make. Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act in 1980 – a law commonly known as “Superfund” – to help force companies cover the cost of hazardous waste removal and mitigation.

The “climate superfund” concept expands on this, with the idea that carbon dioxide, a primary greenhouse gas responsible for human-caused climate change, is the pollutant.

This stance is bolstered by a growing field of climate modeling that traces the line from carbon emitter to extreme weather events. This “climate attribution science” can say that a particular event was a certain percentage more likely because of a warming climate. The Vermont legislation uses the Carbon Majors database to populate sophisticated models to determine the damages caused by greenhouse gas emissions in the state. 

“We are at a point where there is a very sound, peer-reviewed methodology for connecting the dots between how much fossil fuel companies emitted into the atmosphere and what the economic costs of those emissions are on the ground here in Vermont,” says Elena Mihaly, vice president of Conservation and Law Foundation Vermont.

Riley Robinson/Staff/File

Vermonters survey the flood damage on July 11, 2023, in Richmond, Vermont. The floods caused some rivers, including the Winooski and Lamoille, to surpass levels reached during Tropical Storm Irene more than a decade earlier.

How a natural disaster led to legislation

The Green Mountain State experienced catastrophic flash floods and flooded rivers last summer, which dealt more than $2.2 billion in damages, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Montpelier, Vermont, received a record-breaking 5.28 inches of rain, flooding the capital and damaging thousands of homes and businesses. 

Some areas reported more than 8 inches of rain within 24 hours, causing extensive damage to communities as well as road and bridge infrastructure, and prompting hundreds of evacuations. 

According to the National Climate Assessment, extreme precipitation events have increased in the Northeast by 60% since the 1950s.

For Vermonters, it’s been a wake-up call. 

“For a long time, people figured Vermont was a climate haven. But after last summer’s flooding and then another flood in December, it really opened people’s eyes to the reality that climate damages are here and now,” says Ms. Mihaly.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Vermonters support the idea of requiring large oil and gas companies to pay a share of the cost for climate-resilient infrastructure projects, according to a poll by Data For Progress. Even with federal funding for disaster relief, the state and local municipalities are still paying tens of millions for repairs for last summer’s damage.

Justin Mankin, professor of climate variability at Dartmouth College, says last year’s floods were the “immediate catalyst” for climate action in the state, but just another example in a growing list of extreme weather events exacerbated by warming. 

“This isn’t a problem for 2100,” says Mr. Mankin, noting that 2023 was the hottest year on record. “The impacts of warming are here now and they’re impacting people in tangible ways that can be documented. That’s a crucial change for social palatability for these types of legislation.”

Riley Robinson/Staff/File

Alec Long, owner of Chill Gelato, sweeps muddy floodwater out of his store July 11, 2023, in Montpelier, Vermont. Heavy rainfall over more than 36 hours caused severe flooding in central and southern Vermont.

California, Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York are considering similar legislation to establish climate resiliency funds. 

Under the Vermont law, the state treasurer would compile a report of the companies responsible for more than 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas pollution in the state. Those companies would then make payments calculated based on each corporation’s emissions from 1995 to 2024. 

Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources would then allocate the funding for the Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program Fund to enhance infrastructure and weatherproof public buildings, and address the health impacts of climate change.

Vermont still will need to pay for many other resiliency and adaptation projects. But proponents of the Climate Superfund see it as an additional, crucial revenue stream to help local communities prep for the worst.

“Vermont and Vermonters are resilient and will come together,” says Ben Walsh of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. “But we’re just asking too much of them if we’re asking them to shoulder that burden by themselves.” 

“Get ready to experience the biggest Punjabi artist on the planet of all time,” the voice booms across the darkened stadium.

The sold-out crowd, over 50,000 in all, roars as the lights go up and Diljit Dosanjh takes the Vancouver stage. He’s dressed in all black – from his turban, to tunic, to tinted sunglasses – except for a pair of red Nike high-tops.

And if the audacious welcome message – calling the audience the “special chosen ones” about to “witness history” – seems over the top, Mr. Dosanjh does indeed make history. The first leg of his North American tour that runs across Canada and the U.S. into the summer is touted as the largest Punjabi show ever played outside India.

It’s a dazzling expression of the “Punjabi wave” surging across the international music scene. Its creators, mostly Sikhs from northwestern India, mix traditional music with the hip-hop, rap, and pop beats of North America. And Canada-based musicians are leading the way. It’s a nod to the remarkable Punjabi immigration story – with all its complexities – across this country.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The audience reacts to Mr. Dosanjh at his sold-out show, the largest concert ever by a Punjabi artist outside India with more than 54,000 seats sold.

“This is the Punjabi wave. Nobody ever thought somebody would come and sell out BC [Place] Stadium,” says Robyn Sandhu, who came to Canada from India as an international student in 2017 and is now a hip-hop singer penning Punjabi lyrics from Surrey, British Columbia. “They’d say, ‘What are you talking about?’ It’s just crazy.”

The Canadian dream

Punjabi hip-hop, rap, and pop is definitely having a moment. In April, Canada-based Punjabi rapper AP Dhillon performed at the Coachella music festival, after Mr. Dosanjh became the first Punjabi artist to take the California stage last year. In March, Punjabi rapper Karan Aujla, based in British Columbia, took home the 2024 Fan Choice Award at Canada’s annual JUNO Awards. According to Spotify, consumption of music from India has shot up worldwide by 2,000% in the past five years.

Kavita Saini, who was born to Indian parents in small-town British Columbia, says Punjabi music was once something she heard only at weddings or inside her home, not on mainstream airwaves.

“When I was growing up, I was a minority. Now the music has blown up and it’s like, we’re getting known,” says Ms. Saini, at the Dosanjh show with her 9-year-old son at his first concert; an aunt celebrating her 76th birthday; and her mother, who keeps warning her to be wary of two journalists who approach her in case it’s a scam. “Our culture and music is getting known, and our actors and actresses. There is so much talent, so I’m just proud of us.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

From left, Kavita Saini; her son, Rohnik Gill; her mom, Sharan Saini; and her aunt Darshan Gidda, who is seeing the show as her birthday present, speak about Mr. Dosanjh outside the stadium before the show.

The swelling Indian population in Canada buoys the genre. Canada has the largest percentage of Sikhs outside Punjab. The Indian migrant population here has grown by over a third between 2016 and 2021. Of the nearly one million international students who arrived in Canada last year, 40% hailed from India.

Many Punjabi singers – and their producers, managers, and lyricists – came as international students themselves and generated this newest wave, though Sara Grewal, a professor at MacEwan University in Alberta who is co-writing a book on Canadian Sikh hip-hop artists, says the fusion is not new. It’s simply more mainstream now that white audiences are more willing to listen to music in foreign languages.

The international student migration story is central to many Sikh singers. “For some artists, it shows up in their lyrics as the ‘Canadian dream,’ the international student with one suitcase … who is now a big star,” she says. Others rap about the discrimination international students face both by Canadians and the Punjabi community itself. 

On the contrary, fraught politics between India and Canada over the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader on Canadian soil last year have hardly registered in the music.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Robyn Sandhu is a Punjabi poet, lyricist, and hip-hop singer; he’s shown in Surrey, British Columbia, April 28, 2024.

Homeland connections

The Punjabi diaspora is centered in Brampton and Surrey, in greater Toronto and Vancouver respectively. The most recent wave of fusion music is often traced to the late Sidhu Moose Wala, an artist who had moved to Brampton as an international student and was gunned down while in India where he’d launched into politics. But the music’s hub has shifted westward in recent years.

The Punjabi community of Surrey, where nearly 30% of residents identify as Sikh, is concentrated around 128 Street. Mr. Sandhu, who goes about his days penning poems on his iPhone, spent a recent Sunday drinking mango lassis at the town’s Little India Plaza with friends, all newly arrived international students. The night before, he’d been recording a song he dubbed “128,” an ode to a city he says he loves. But in the Punjabi wave, he sees a vehicle for keeping immigrants and second-generation Indians connected to their homeland.

“A huge part of the diaspora was born here and was sort of disconnected from their culture. But once they found Punjabi music, they found a lens onto the culture,” he says. “We listen to the same music as you do. We listen to Michael Jackson. We listen to Tupac. … We’re in North America speaking English and listening to English beats and we’re rapping Punjabi over it.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

From left, Harjas Chahal, Nehak Judge, and Ikvir Chahal talk about their excitement at seeing the opening night of Mr. Dosanjh's cross-Canada tour.

“We are so excited,” says Ikvir Chahal, who is waiting outside for the Diljit Dosanjh concert to begin. Born in Vancouver, she is here with her younger sister and friend. The girls, all students at the University of British Columbia, show off their iPhones with wallpaper images of Mr. Dosanjh. Ms. Chahal’s father, Kuldip Singh Chahal, approaches the group with his eyes lit, talking about how his village back in India is next door to Mr. Dosanjh’s.

He doesn’t have to convince his daughters that this is worth knowing.

Ms. Chahal says she loves North American rap and hip-hop. “But I love music in my language. It has a different touch. A magic to it,” she says. “We love our Punjabi music.”

Elizabeth Williams via AP

Donald Trump, far left, watches as a jury foreperson delivers guilty verdicts to Judge Juan Merchan in Manhattan Criminal Court, May 30.

Thursday’s guilty verdict against Donald Trump on 34 felony counts has raised concerns about a possible effect on democracy in the future: Will prosecutors aligned with one party now feel emboldened to indict elected leaders of another party? The performance of the jury in the Trump trial offers a calming insight.

Mr. Trump, who plans to appeal the verdict, and his supporters had claimed that he could not obtain a fair trial in New York because it is overwhelmingly liberal. The public actually knows little about the individual jurors. They were vetted by both sides during jury selection and asked whether they could weigh evidence dispassionately, particularly in a case involving such a well-known figure. 

A few hours into their deliberations, the jurors returned with three requests. They wanted headphones to better review recorded testimony. They asked for a rereading of transcripts of witness accounts of pivotal events. Their concern for factual accuracy was matched by a third, more revealing request.

New York state law does not allow judges to hand out the instructions they give juries for rendering verdicts. That guidance must be read from the bench. Judge Juan Merchan’s ran 55 pages. The jurors returned to hear again a specific passage. It read, “In deciding whether to draw an inference, you must look at and consider all the facts in the light of reason, common sense, and experience.”

Reason, notes Andrew Walker, an ethics professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, ties self-government to conscience and reconciliation. It rests on evidence, and favors listening and empathy over emotion and instinct. “To reason deeply,” he wrote in an essay for the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, “must mean there is an honest airing of differences and an honest willingness to hear the other’s side.”

An innate capacity for ordinary citizens to subordinate their own views to reason and place justice ahead of personal preference may be why a right to trial by jury was one of the few points that drew universal agreement in America’s founding constitutional debates. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts summarized that consensus in observing that “the jury is adapted to the investigation of truth beyond any other system the world can produce.”

Fifty-three “free” or “partly free” countries have indicted past or present heads of state since 2000, according to a survey last year by Foreign Policy magazine. One common lesson is that countries with strong democratic institutions often emerge even stronger through those prosecutions. The exercise of equality before the law deepens civic trust.

In the first criminal trial of a former American president, 12 fairly selected jurors followed the facts and the law. In times of high political passion, they showed temperance of reason in the pursuit of truth. Democracy relies on the wisdom and impartiality of such everyday folks.