In many state and local jurisdictions, although not all, the judicial system seeks to ensure that officials are directly responsible to the electorate. This means that in municipalities, counties, and states across the country, officers of the court are elected. Sometimes, although again not always, these elections are politically partisan.

The Wisconsin elections were officially non-partisan, but the winning candidate was widely perceived as a progressive running with democratic support and her opponent was seen as a conservative republican.

Law enforcement is not immune from the red/blue divide. In many places in the United States, for example, county sheriffs, who run police departments at an intermediate level, are elected. On occasion, these locally elected cops can be hyper-partisan.

There is even a weird, pseudo-legal trend on America’s far right that treats elected sheriffs as the highest “legitimate” authority in the land. The “Constitutional Sheriffs Movement” is a collection of fringe groups that believe that as elected officials sheriffs hold ultimate authority in determining which laws to enforce, including federal law. Although this approach has no basis in constitutional jurisprudence, it reflects the sometimes surprising ways in which some Americans believe that justice can be legitimately partisan.

Thus far there is little to suggest District Attorney Bragg’s prosecution of Donald Trump – besides the very decision to prosecute in the first place – is partisan.