In 1816 Congress officially created the office of reporter of decisions of the Supreme Court. The reporter, with a staff of nine, records and edits all the Court's case decisions. Since 1955 audio tapes have been made of oral arguments before the Court. These recordings are stored at the National Archives. The reporter oversees the process of printing and publishing the record of the Court's decisions in United States Reports, the official publication of the Court's decisions.
The reporter also supervises the printing of a headnote for each decision of the Court. The headnote is a summary of the case that includes background facts, the legal reasoning used in the decision, and the voting record of the justices on the case. The headnote also tells whether the lower court's ruling has been affirmed or overturned by the Supreme Court's decision. Each headnote contains this statement: “The syllabus [headnote] constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.”
The first reporter of decisions was Alexander Dallas, who served unofficially on the job from 1790 to 1800. He was self-appointed, but the Court gave its approval to his work. He was not paid by the federal government, but he tried to make a profit through sales of his published reports. William Cranch, the second reporter, also worked unofficially at this job from 1801 to 1815. Henry Wheaton, who served from 1816 to 1827, was the first official reporter of the Supreme Court. The early reporters of decisions did their work laboriously by hand. Today, the reporter and his staff use audiotape and recorders, photocopy machines, and high-speed computers and printers to process information and produce the formal record of the Court's work.
See also Staff of the Supreme Court, nonjudicial; United States Reports
