In the election for New York state’s Attorney General this fall, we are delighted to endorse the Republican challenger, Michael Henry. It’s hard to remember a race for New York’s top law enforcement official in which the constitutional issues that matter most to the Sun — due process, say, and equal justice under the law — have emerged in sharper relief than in the contest between Mr. Henry and the incumbent, Letitia James.

We’re also glad to see it’s become, as our Russell Payne reports, a real horse race between these two candidates. The contest here for governor recently tightened to what RealClear Politics calls a toss-up. It’s a startling, though welcome, development in a state where Democrats hold a more than two to one registration advantage. Offices that Democrats have come to take for granted as a lock for their party now appear to be in play.

What makes the Henry-James contest riveting is Ms. James’ Ahab-like obsession with President Trump. She ran for office on a campaign to “stand up and fight back,” as she put it in 2018, against “that man in the White House.” As a candidate, she called Mr. Trump “illegitimate,” and contended he “should be charged with obstructing justice.” She ventured, without evidence, that he was engaged in the “pattern and practice of money laundering.”

Ms. James called herself “a street fighter,” and has remained true to her word. Yet the shrillness of her rhetoric as a candidate struck even the New York Times, which wondered if her “strident attacks” on Mr. Trump would undermine her ability to prosecute cases against him. Judges might get the impression, said an ex-federal prosecutor, Daniel Goldman, now a candidate for Congress, that she had “an individualized political vendetta.”

It’s not our intention here to call into doubt the principle of prosecutorial discretion. Yet Ms. James, by in effect campaigning on a promise to prosecute, if not persecute, a specific individual, long ago went off the normative rails that guide ethical law enforcement and prosecution. So it’s gratifying to see, in Mr. Henry, a candidate with the ethical clarity to stand up for restoring the integrity of the office of attorney general. 

Mr. Henry, a lawyer specializing in commercial litigation, is based at Astoria, Queens. He was spurred to run after concluding that New York has become a “one-party controlled state” and that the AG’s office was “weaponized” for political purposes. His campaign tells us he is “focused on tackling the crime, corruption, and cost-of-living crises in New York.” He has zeroed in on Albany’s failed bail reform as a cause of soaring crime rates. 

We were struck by Mr. Henry’s response yesterday when we asked him whether he planned to drop the civil case Ms. James has launched against Mr. Trump. “Unlike his opponent who declared someone’s guilt or said she’d find crimes against someone,” a campaign spokeswoman told us, Mr. Henry “will not make any prejudicial statements about a case he will inherit.” The response suggested a potential revival of Jacksonian principles at Albany.

The Jackson to whom we are referring is the one who was FDR’s attorney general, Robert Jackson, later Justice Jackson. In 1940 he gave his famous speech about prosecutors. He spoke of the danger that a prosecutor “will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.” That guidance, ignored by General James, is more likely to be heeded if Michael Henry accedes to her office — to the benefit of all New Yorkers.