What word means a formal decision by a court?

The word that means a formal decision by a court, on the USCIS reading vocabulary list, is Verdict. A verdict is the decision rendered by a jury (or by a judge in a bench trial) on the matter submitted to it for determination, typically the question of guilt in a criminal case or liability in a civil case. The word comes from the Latin veredictum, meaning "truly said."

In U.S. criminal trials the jury must unanimously agree on a verdict of guilty or not guilty for the prosecution to obtain a conviction, although a few states permit non-unanimous verdicts in some non-felony cases. (The Supreme Court held in Ramos v. Louisiana, 2020, that the Sixth Amendment requires unanimous jury verdicts in state felony cases.) If the jury cannot agree the result is a hung jury and the judge declares a mistrial; the prosecution may then retry the defendant without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

In civil trials federal practice and most state practice allow non-unanimous verdicts in many circumstances. The right to trial by an impartial jury in all criminal prosecutions is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution; the Seventh Amendment guarantees a jury trial in federal civil cases where the amount in controversy exceeds $20. After a verdict the judge enters judgment and, in criminal cases, conducts sentencing.

The defendant may appeal a guilty verdict on legal grounds (such as evidentiary errors or constitutional violations), but the prosecution generally cannot appeal a not-guilty verdict because of double jeopardy. On the reading test Verdict may appear in a sentence about courts, juries, or the criminal justice system.