Reminiscences of a Reporter of Decisions.
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REMINISCENCES OF A REPORTER OF DECISIONS. BY GEORGE Fox TUCKER. I.
WHILE the office of a Reporter of De cisions may not afford a great variety of incident, it is not without experiences, both pleasant and profitable, the purpose to portray which is offered as an excuse for these unpretentious reminiscences. It was in the last of June or early in July, 1892, that a court officer notified the writer that Chief Justice Field requested an interview at the Court house. I found that gentleman in the judges' lobby and was informed in an ac cent that betokened a kindly interest that he and his associates had concluded to ask me to accept the position so soon to be vacated. There is hardly a remembrance of association with the judges during eight and a half years of service that produces so pleasant a sen sation as the memory of this evidence of their favor. Of course, it is well known that while the selection of a reporter belongs primarily to the Executive that privilege is graciously intrusted by him to the Court, so that the Governor's duty in the premises is largely a perfunctory one. The first argument I listened to as a re porter was of the case of Commonwealth v. Trefethen, 157 Mass. 180, assigned at a spe cial session of the court, in September, 1892. The Government was represented by Mr. Pillsbury, the Attorney-General, and the defence by Governor Long and Mr. Wil liam Schofield, recently raised to the Su perior Bench. The Attorney-General pre sented his case with ability and Gov. Long spoke for the accused with force and with a profound sense of the responsibility. The decision of the Court held that "when evi dence of declarations of a person are offered to show his state of mind or intention at the time the declarations were made, they may be so remote in point of time, or so altered
in import by subsequent change in the cir cumstances of the maker as to be wholly im material, and wisely to be rejected by the judge; but the discretion to be exercised by the judge or judges presiding at the trial, in the admission or rejection of this kind of evidence, is not an absolute one, and the ex ercise of it when the facts appear may be re vised by this court." The facts were that a young woman, whom the defendant was charged with drowning,' was found in the water a little over a fortnight after her disap pearance and that the day before she was last seen she made the declaration that she was going to drown herself. As I remember, the duty of presenting the law on this point was largely assigned to Mr. Schofield. I now re call a young man of serious aspect and quiet deportment slowly, deliberately and forcibly offering argument after argument in favor of the admission of the dead woman's declara tion, and producing, in the belief of the writer, a conviction in the minds of the judges that found expression in an opinion partly over ruling a previous decision and concluding with the entry, "Verdict against Trefethen set aside." II. Curious views prevail among laymen as to the duties of a Reporter of Decisions. Some are of the opinion that he is a kind of re corder, entering in a book the names of the cases and the decisons thereon and receiving therefor compensation to his advantage en tirely disproportionate to his supposed labor. On more than one occasion a lawyer has pre sented me to his wife with the words, "Permit me, my dear, to introduce Mr. Tucker, the Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Judi cial Court." My experiences have never been disturbed by an exception. Every woman 1 can remember has regarded me with a pat
