Always read the decision.

One key component of becoming an informed and involved taxpayer and voter is taking the time to become familiar with reading judicial decisions. Primary source documents help in forming useful questions and evaluating the perspectives of public figures who gain from having their version of facts become accepted truth.

Today’s suggested reading is a 3-0 U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals opinion published Monday, affirming a jury’s decision to find former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan guilty on 10 counts in a wide-ranging bribery and corruption trial that yielded a $2.5 million fine and 70-month prison sentence.

The opinion itself is at tinyurl.com/MadiganAppealDenied. Hannah Meisel’s Capitol News Illinois summary is at tinyurl.com/MadiganAppealCNI.

While this opinion provides typical insight into the specifics of government prosecutors’ arguments and the standard of proof, its further value is in distilling more than a decade of Illinois history, neatly explaining cause, action and effect.

Judge Michael Scudder wrote the 29-page opinion, opening with a concise summary: “Sufficient evidence supports each conviction, and we see no prejudicial error in the district court’s jury instructions.”

But stick around for the details. Scudder, who worked as an accountant before enrolling in Northwestern University’s law school, has a no-nonsense writing style. Save for requisite references to federal court rules, statutory citations and attributions to preceding court cases, a lot of the text isn’t much different from how a seasoned court reporter might present information.

He explained how U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey “correctly identified the elements of the offense” when instructing the jury and then defined the appellate court’s power to review sufficiency of trial evidence: it could only consider if any rational person assessing the facts “could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” In the circuit, he added, that burden is “nearly insurmountable.”

That context clarifies why Madigan’s chances were slim, and Scudder deftly explains the case history and why Madigan’s appellate arguments failed, routinely addressing what a reasonable jury could believe based on everything shown at trial.

His final paragraph stands on its own as a sufficient summary of the events that felled a towering figure of Illinois government:

“Michael Madigan spent nearly a decade leveraging his power as one of the highest-ranking public officials in Illinois in exchange for over $3 million of financial benefits for his close political allies. The linkage was clear and far from fleeting. He repeatedly facilitated changes to state law impacting countless energy consumers in northern Illinois, all because ComEd funneled money to the right people. Madigan insists that this was run-of-the-mill politics. But a jury of 12 Illinois residents saw the evidence differently. So do we.”

Amen.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.