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26 J. Sup. Ct. Hist. 9 (2001)
The Role of the Supreme Court Reporter in History

handle is hein.journals/jspcth26 and id is 9 raw text is: The Role of the Supreme Court Reporter in History FRANK D. WAGNER Present Duties of the Reporter The Reporter of Decisions is one of the four statutory officers of the Supreme Court. The others are the Clerk of the Court-presently, General Bill Suter-the Marshal of the Court, Dale Bosley, and the Librarian, Shelley Dowling.1 We're called statutory officers because ourjobs are created by law; our job descriptions are actually included in the United States Code. You can find the Reporter's job described at 28 U.S. C. §673. The Administrative Assistant to the Chief Justice, Sally Rider, is also a statutory officer, but she is appointed by and works pri- marily for the Chief Justice to assist in the management of the Court facility and the perfor- mance of the Chief's nonjudicial responsibilities.2 There have been relatively few Reporters in the Court's history, and many of them have stayed for long periods of time. I am the fifteenth Reporter since 1789. To give you some frame of reference on that, there have been sixteen Chief Justices during the same period.3 As the Reporter of Decisions, my pri- mary job is to publish the Court's opinions in the Court's official publication, the United States Reports. I am also an editor of sorts, but not the type of full-service editor with whom some of you might be familiar. Rather, the Reporter and his staff have been described by the thirteenth Reporter, Henry Putzel, Jr., as double revolving peripatetic nit- picker[s].4 We carefully examine each draft of each opinion to assure the accuracy of its quotations and citations and-to the extent we can-its facts. We also check for any typo- graphical errors, misspellings, grammatical mistakes, and deviations from the Supreme Court's complicated style rules.5 We now do this for each case before it is

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