Lady Justice famously wears a blindfold. The implication of the symbolic representation is clear. She is blind to the identities of the people and parties standing before her.
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We all intuit that justice would likely not prevail if laws were directed to specific individuals or if cases were decided based on popularity or power. One of the great advances wrought by the Magna Carta is the idea that no one, not even a king, is above the law. There is a strong argument that New York's case against former President Trump (in which he was charged with inflating real estate values) violates the requirement that justice be blind.
Donald Trump has not been a stranger to litigation during his long and illustrious career. But there is no doubt that his recent troubles have been magnified by the fact of his presidency. In other words, he became a target simply by virtue of winning high office and therefore gaining powerful enemies. There is little question that Trump's defiant manner has added heat to the opposition he often faces.
It is explicitly part of our tradition and of our view of justice itself, that the law is general in its application. An important way to think of that is that if person A and person B commit the same offense under the same circumstances, they will receive roughly the same sentence. One of the great complaints of criminal punishments in the 1980s and 1990s was that similar crimes—the possession of crack and cocaine—yielded different penalties. The argument has been that one was a black crime, while the other was more often committed by whites. The logic has force because it offends our sense of equal justice.
The state of New York is guilty of delivering a judgment that appears to be created just for Donald Trump. That is to say that he is a unique figure receiving a unique judgment sought by an elected official. Justice tailored to one is almost certainly not just. No similar case can be identified in the history of the statute used to convict Trump.
Trump has been convicted of inflating the value of his assets in order to gain business loans. In a reasonable version of this story, it would have to be the case that Trump defrauded and harmed creditors by lying about his assets and then failing to pay back loans. Those damaged would cry out for justice.