If a New York state court does not eventually throw out the $464 million civil fraud judgment against former President Donald Trump as a textbook case of selective prosecution, the United States Supreme Court surely will. But those decisions won’t come until years from now. In the meantime, New York Attorney General Letitia James is doing grave harm to our democracy.

New York’s Executive Law § 63(12) was passed in 1956 to protect consumers from repeat fraudulent actors. The thinking was that an individual bilked out of $20 might not have an incentive to sue the fraudster because it wouldn’t be worth the time and expense of a private lawsuit. But a prosecutor could protect hundreds or thousands of consumers by prosecuting repeat offenders.