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2007 Cal. Sup. Ct. Hist. Soc'y Newsl. 1 (2007)

handle is hein.journals/casrecths2007 and id is 1 raw text is: THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT I Historical Society NEWSLETTER - SPRING/SUMMER 2007 Headnotes About the Reporters, 1850-1990 BY EDWARD W. JESSEN Report me and my cause aright. HAMLET, ACT V, SCENE 2 From the California Constitution of 1849 to the present day, the Supreme Court has been required to decide causes in writing with the reasons stated.1 The result- ing written opinions become precedent to be followed by * all other appellate and trial ' courts in California. But for opinions to be followed requires they be reported reliably and made available to all, and that has beenL the fundamental mission of Edward W Jessen every Reporter of Decisions. Thus the Constitution of 1849 authorized the appointment of a Reporter of Decisions, charged with responsibility for preparing and publishing the opin- ions, subject to correction and approval by the court. To ensure availability of the opinions, the Legisla- ture enacted, and has periodically amended, statutory provisions relating to the Reporter of Decisions and publication of the California Official Reports. These provisions were first enacted in the former Political Code, but are now found in the Government Code, section 68900 et seq. As a result, there have been 24 Reporters of Decisions to date: 1. So too has the Court of Appeal been required to decide causes in writing with reasons stated since its 1904 establish- ment, with the Reporter of Decisions also having responsi- bility for publishing the opinions of that court. I. EDWARD NORTON 1850-1851 2. NATHANIEL BENNETT 1851-1852 3. RUFUS A. LOCKWOOD 1852 4. H.P. HEPBURN 1852-1854 5. WM. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 1855 6. H. TOLER BOORAEM 1856-1858 7. HARVEY LEE 1858-1859 8. JOHN B. HARMON 1859-1860 9. DAVID T. BAGLEY 186o-1862 10. CURTIS J. HILLYER 1862-1863 11. CHARLES A. TUTTLE 1863-1867 12. J.E. HALE 1867-1869 13. TOD ROBINSON 1869 14. R. AUG. THOMPSON 1870-1871 15. CHARLES A. TUTTLE 1871-1878 16. G.J. CARPENTER 1878 17. GEORGE H. SMITH 1879-1882 18. W.W. COPE 1883-1887 19. C.P. POMEROY 1887-1917 20. RANDOLPH V. WHITING 1917-1940 21. B.E. WITKIN 1940-1949 22. WM. NANKERVIS, JR. 1949-1969 23. ROBERT E. FORMICHI 1969-1989 24. EDWARD W. JESSEN 1989- The second Reporter of Decisions, Nathaniel Ben- nett, has the distinction of an overlapping tenure as an associate justice of the Supreme Court from December 1849 through October 1851. As the story goes, the first Reporter, Edward Norton (not the colorful Emperor Norton from San Francisco's early history), was over- whelmed by the work at hand and quit after his manu- script was lost in a fire. Justice Bennett agreed to take on the additional duties of Reporter and apparently did admirable work in both capacities, at least for a while. In the preface to the first volume of Supreme Court opinions, Justice Bennett, as Reporter of Deci- sions, generally described Continued on page 5 NEWSLETTER . SPRING/SUMMER 2007 I

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