Wheaton v Greenleaf: A (Story) Tale of Three Reporters

Abstract

This article recounts some of the history of the early reporters of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, including the efforts of Justice Joseph Story to cultivate the regular and widely available reporting of Supreme Court decisions, his close friendship with Henry Wheaton — the Court’s third reporter, and Story’s relationship with Simon Greenleaf, well-known Harvard law professor and reporter for the Supreme Court of Maine who narrowly missed out on becoming the Court’s fourth reporter in a situation that both Story and Greenleaf regretted. The article publishes a letter from Greenleaf to Story expressing interest in the position of Supreme Court reporter and seeking Story’s support, but the letter arrived too late, after Story already had promised his support to Richard Peters, Jr. The article also briefly recounts the Supreme Court case of Wheaton v. Peters, in which Wheaton and Peters battled over whether the Court’s reporters held copyright interests in the Supreme Court decisions they reported. The article notes that, but for the belated delivery of Greenleaf’s letter to Story, the case might instead have been styled Wheaton v. Greenleaf, or perhaps there would have been no case at all.