It’s a journalistic maxim: There are two sides to every story — and usually more.

In a letter to the editor today, Robert Massingill of Chatsworth, Ga., argues that an American lieutenant has been wrongfully convicted of murder in the deaths of two Afghans that his platoon fired upon in 2012. As Massingill describes the scene, the soldiers were under threat by the Afghans and Lt. Clint Lorance was railroaded by the justice system for simply protecting the soldiers under his command.

A Google search for Lorance’s name finds a different description of the events. Task and Purpose, a website for veterans at taskandpurpose.com, says in an article that some who testified at Lorance’s trial said the motorcycle carrying three men was on the far side of a grape field and wasn’t threatening them at all. Nine soldiers of Lorance’s platoon testified against him in his trial in 2013.

The story includes this quote from another publication: “This isn’t a soldier that went to war and gone done wrong,” a former team leader in Lorance’s platoon told Army Times in 2015. “This is a soldier that had a taste for blood and wanted to have that fulfilled. And he did, but in the wrong way.”

The Observer was not there — not in Afghanistan, not at Lorance’s trial. We do not claim to know the truth of the matter.

In his letter, Massingill urges readers to write to President Trump to encourage him to pardon Lorance. We encourage you to do your own research first. When you have a clear picture of all the sides of this story, do what you think is right.

That’s the standard we hope you’ll apply to every perspective offered on this page, whether through letters to the editor, Rant and Rave, syndicated columnists or the local editorials we publish as Our Opinion. Take what we say as one source of information. Do your own research. Make up your own mind.

Then do what you think is right.