Former President Donald Trump may be running for president in 2024 . However, anyone paying attention to events knows he also might be spending much of the year in the courtroom, not just on the campaign trail. The former president faces several legal actions against him. These include federal and state charges on matters including his conduct as president, his response to the 2020 election, and business dealings he made as a private person.

There is a temptation in many of those observing these legal matters to decide them based more on their view of Trump than on the merits of the cases. If one loves the man, then these actions are nothing less than an existential threat to the United States, with elites trying to keep the people’s champion out of the Oval Office . And if you hate the former president, then these legal charges merely substantiate that Trump himself is a threat to ethical and constitutional government.

Some of the charges against the president hold more legal plausibility. Others fall into the hard-to-defend or even outright ridiculous. We should address them according to the strength of their arguments, not the strength of our loving or loathing the man to whom they pertain.

Among the latter are the recent decisions to keep the former president off the ballot in Colorado and Maine. Both decisions sprung from a reading of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was added to the Constitution in 1868. We mostly know that the amendment’s first section prohibits the states from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without due process of law and demands that states give all persons in their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Some of our biggest court cases, including recent ones concerning abortion and affirmative action, concerned how to interpret and apply this portion of the 14th Amendment.

Section 3 denies those who had occupied certain national or state offices from occupying other listed national government roles if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

This portion of the amendment has not been used in any serious form since the aftermath of the Civil War. It clearly intended to limit the involvement of former Confederates in the postwar national government. The fact that those men all died many years ago does not mean the section has no contemporary application, any more than the 14th Amendment’s first section focusing on protecting freed slaves denies its applicability to other persons. Still, its original context of a full-blown civil war should give us pause in thinking it easily maps on to our own time and place.

Several other factors do more than give us pause in applying this constitutional provision to Trump. In fact, they undermine them decisively. First, it is not clear the 14th Amendment applies to the president since that office is not listed and there are reasonable arguments that it is not there by implication.

Second, Trump has not been convicted of “insurrection or rebellion.” One might think him guilty of those crimes. But he has not been determined to have done either in an impeachment process or in a court of law.

Third, and related, the idea that a state Supreme Court, in Colorado, or a secretary of state, in Maine, could unilaterally convict Trump according to the 14th Amendment is both illogical and sets a terrible precedent that undermines due process and national power in relation to the states.

These ballot exclusions should and will be overturned by the Supreme Court. They will be rejected by a significant, if not unanimous, majority of the justices. That does not mean none of the other charges against him hold water. That against the former president on the handling of classified documents is likely the strongest — and was entirely avoidable by Trump, too. But, again, we should not make determinations on these cases based on our view of Trump, the stakes of the 2024 election, or on what partisan tribe with whom we align. Judge the merits, both for the sake of justice and the rule of law.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.