President Joe Biden has orchestrated the prosecution of an ex-president for motives that are political.

No. That’s not true.

The judge who is slated to hear the trial of this ex-president was appointed by him, which means she won’t be fair and will let him off.

No. That’s not true, either.

Sitting at my kitchen table, I can almost hear some people’s heads exploding on reading one of these statements. In my mind’s eye, I can see the same heads nodding their approval of the other statement.

Which statement you believe, and which one you don’t, depends on your political persuasion.

And in fact, neither of those statements is true. Believing either of them speaks of a fundamental misunderstanding of the legal system. That’s bad because it weakens the one system that can keep us a free people.

I am not a lawyer — though I am married to one attorney and gave birth to two others — but I do understand that the legal system is highly technical and operates very differently than how most people think it works. I heard a lot of examples of this misunderstanding when I worked for couple of years in my husband’s one-person office in 2013 and 2014.

“Alabama is a mommy state!”  The voice through the door in my husband’s then tiny office was emphatic. “That judge always sides with the woman.”

The young man making those statements was certain that what he said was true. He was wrong, however.

Most of us — me included — have only a foggy notion of what burdens of proof are, what can and can’t be considered by a judge when making a ruling, and how guidance from appellate courts sets out the law.

Other times, as his assistant, I heard many litigants proudly say to my husband that Granny, the person’s boss or some other person would “write a letter to the judge” and tell it like it is, and even get such a document notarized.

Early in his career, my husband would attempt to explain that the rules of evidence won’t allow that, and that the other side can’t cross examine a piece of paper. Now — older, grumpier and busier — he’s likely to simply say, “You can’t do that.”

The case against former President Donald Trump is a complicated and carefully constructed set of charges that the Justice Department will present to a judge or jury under the supervision of a judge.

The fact that the ex-president/defendant belongs to one party and the current president to another party may seem to matter a lot, but it really won’t.

The president didn’t ring up the Justice Department and tell its lawyers to prosecute. Nor is the judge in this case standing at the ready to dispose of the charges against this defendant.

Just as a good prosecution is a carefully placed stack of facts and applicable law, the selection of a judge is also multi-dimensional.

Certainly, I’m not saying these processes lack a political component. The attorney general was appointed by one president and the judge by the other.

However, the process of choosing a federal judge is at least as methodical as preparing a prosecution.

A president doesn’t call one of his supporters who happens to be an attorney and tell the person to buy a black robe and take the bench. The process of appointing a federal trial judge includes the president, the senator(s) from the home state of the judge, the American Bar Association and, of course, confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Are politics involved? Of course. But the process is in place to weed out incompetent hacks and dishonest judges.

In this case, the political advantage in having a judge appointed by the defendant falls to the prosecution. It helps give lie to the notion that some giant conspiracy has weaponized the system. After all, the defendant’s name is on the document that made her a judge.

Will this judge simply do what Chief Justice John Roberts, at his 2005 confirmation hearing, said he would do if appointed? “It’s my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat,” he assured senators.

This is no ball game, however. This prosecution is a test for all of us. If our legal system doesn’t remain strong and free from the undue influences of power politics, we will devolve into a banana republic where the law doesn’t matter.

There’s a lot of conversation these days about how “we the people” must determine our destiny. When you look at how societies have been governed over the past 3,000 years or so, a government where power is really in the hands of the people is relatively rare. The Age of Enlightenment, the French Revolution and similar movements replaced kings who took their power from God Almighty with a system where all of us get to determine who will have power over us.

Doing this requires a strong and independent legal system. Remember that, if you want freedom and self-government. Seeing conspiracies where none exists and imagining that an exercise of the criminal system is a slow-motion coup d’état weakens our constitutional system. Tearing that system down would be a critical step in destroying our democracy.

If we want a government by and for the people, we have to stop believing the myths and instead try to understand how the legal machine works. Respect for and confidence in the legal system are important.

Remember that when you like a meme that says “Joe Biden is stealing another election” or an assertion that a judge appointed by the defendant can’t render justice.

Neither is true. If you can’t discipline yourself to rely on more than internet memes and oft repeated lies to understand the law, you’ll have a hand in tearing down our legal system.

And in doing that, you’ll help destroy the democracy you pretend to defend, no matter which side you’re on.

Frances Coleman is a former editorial page editor of the Mobile Press-Register. Email her at [email protected] and “like” her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prfrances.