For 25 years, I covered government and politics as a reporter in Maine. Based at the State House, my reporting exposed malfeasance, misfeasance and led to a few miscreant legislators losing their seats. Covering stories that affected the lives of people in my community and state was rewarding work.

Now, my colleagues and I on The Conversation’s politics desk follow stories at the national level as well as in states. And for me, there is no more compelling and thrilling kind of story than one that deals with the founding ideals of this nation, how U.S. democracy was designed to work, and whether our leaders are living up to the founders’ ambitions.

I got a chance to follow that kind of story a million times this week, when a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed down its decision in what’s come to be known as the Trump immunity case. In 57 pages, the judges ruled unanimously that presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution for actions they took while in office.

Scholar Claire Wofford, an associate professor of political science at the College of Charleston, and I dived into the decision as soon as we could download it. She read it so she’d have fodder for her story on the decision; I read it for the sheer excitement of the momentous questions, and answers, at hand.

Regardless of what you think of it, “the court’s decision, particularly if the Supreme Court allows it to stand, is likely to have ramifications across the U.S. legal and political systems for decades,” writes Wofford.