xt7msb3wtd0h_32 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7msb3wtd0h/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7msb3wtd0h/data/72m2.dao.xml unknown 166 Cubic Feet 381 document boxes, seven textile items, three map folders, one artwork archival material 72m2 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Frederick Moore Vinson papers Economic stabilization. Elections -- United States -- Congresses. Judges -- Correspondence. Judges -- United States. Judicial opinions Judicial process -- United States Legislators -- Correspondence. New Deal, 1933-1939. World War, 1914-1918 -- Veterans. World War, 1939-1945. Legislation - statutes at large text Legislation - statutes at large 2019 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7msb3wtd0h/data/72m2/Box_165/Folder_7/Multipage3909.pdf 1948-1953 1953 1948-1953 section false xt7msb3wtd0h_32 xt7msb3wtd0h SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
OFFICE OF THE REPORTER E‘JEAI/mgk
WASHINGTON, D. 0.

October 1, 19h8

Honorable Fred M. Vinson,
Chief Justice of the United States,
washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. Chief Justice:

In order to expedite the publication of the per curiam
decisions and orders and to make them available to the
Bench and Bar in permanently citable form.at much earlier
dates than is possible under the present method, I would
like to make a slight change in the method of their publi—
cation, if it meets with your approval and that of the
Court.

This would seem desirable from a practical standpoint,
because any lawyer preparing to try a case or to argue it
before an appellate court, who has found a recent decision
of a lower federal court on a point involved in his case,
needs to know whether or not this Court has granted or denied
a petition for a writ of certiorari to review that decision or
has entered any other order affecting its standing as a prece—
dent. It would seem that this office ought to make that infor-
mation available to him through the official United States
Reports as soon as possible and that it would be desirable to
make it available in a permanently citable form.

339.33%

In order to accomplish this, it is proposed that, instead
of saving up all the orders for the period covered by an
entire bound volume of the United States Reports, publishing
them in Part A of the Preliminary Prints, and grouping all
of them at the back of the bound volume, the orders for the
period covered by each Preliminary Print be published in
permanent form and with permanent pagination at the back of
that Preliminary Print and at the corresponding four places
in each bound volume. In order to make it easy to find all
the orders in each bound volume, each group of orders would
be preceded by a cross—reference to the pages where the other
three groups of orders in that bound volume are published.

In all other respects, the present form of publishing the
orders would remain unchanged.

 

 ADVANTAGES

On the basis of experience during the last Term of the
Court, it is believed that the adoption of this proposal
would make the orders available to the profession in perma-
nently citable form from 72 to 150 days earlier than they
are now made available. This estimate is based upon the en—
closed table, which shows for each Preliminary Print contain—
ing opinions or orders of the 19h? Term the dates of the
earliest and latest opinion or order contained in that part,
the date of publication of the part, and the time elapsed
between the dates of the earliest and latest opinion or order
and the date of its publication in the Preliminary Print.
This table shows that the time between the announcement and
publication of the earliest opinion in each part ranged from
55 to 91 days, and that the time between the announcement and
publication of the latest opinion in each part ranged from
52 to 7h days; but that, because all of the orders were grouped
in Part h of each volume, the time between the announcement
and publication of the earliest order in each volume ranged
from 116 to 165 days, and that the time between the announce—
ment and publication of the latest order in each part ranged
fram 57 to 69 days. As a matter 6r fact, the saving of time
would be even greater than these figures indicate; because
it would not take as long to accumulate enough material to
fill each of the first three Preliminary Prints in each volume,
and this would result in further expediting the publication
of the opinions and greatly expediting the publication of the
orders.

There would also be certain incidental advantages to the
adoption of this proposal, including the following:

1. Because of the great delay in publishing the orders
in permanent form under the present system, this office now
publishes in the back of the Preliminary Prints a brief
summary of the orders under the heading ”Cases to be Reported."
(For an example, see 555 U. 8., Part h, following page 885.)
During the last Term of Court, this material aggregated 6h
pages of nine—point type, and the Government Printing Office
says that its publication cost $5h0. It is of no permanent
value and is not used in the bound volumes. This could be
dispensed with entirely, with a corresponding saving in cost,
if the orders were printed in permanent form at the back of
each Preliminary Print.

 

 2. The proposed new method would also simplify and
expedite somewhat the work of this office in preparing the
cumulative table of cases reported, which is published in
Part A of the Preliminary Print of each volume of the United
States Reports and later in the bound volume.

PAST PRACTICE

The past practice with respect to the publication of
orders may be summarized as follows:

1. They were not published at all prior to the 1886
Term, when all of them.for the entire Term were published
at the back of the last volume for that Term, 122 U. S.

2. From 122 U. 8. through 163 U. 8., the orders for the
entire Term were published at the back of the last volume for
that Term.

5. Beginning with 16% U. S. and continuing down through
55h U. S., the orders for the period covered by each volume

of the United States Reports have usually been published at
the back of that volume.

A. When the present method of publishing the orders was
adopted, the decisions of this Court Were not published in
Preliminary Print form, but only in bound volume form, and
no delay resulted from publishing all the orders at the back
of the bound volume.

5. The change now proposed would continue and bring down
to date the evolution of the method of publishing these orders,
and Would afford to the Bench and Bar the full benefit of the
hmprovement made when this office started publishing Prelimi-
nary Prints of the United States Reports in order to make the
official text.of, and the official citations to, the decisions
of this Court more promptly available.

OTHER REPORTS

Each advance sheet of the Supreme Court Reporter, publish—
ed by the West Publishing Company, and each advance sheet of
the lawyers' Edition, published by the Lawyers Cooperative
Publishing Company, contains some of the orders of this Court;
but they apparently do not cover the same period as the opinions
published in the advance sheet. West Publishing Company
scatters the orders throughout the bound volumes of its Supreme
Court Reporter on the same pages as they were published in their

 

 - h _

advance sheets. The Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company
re-groups them at the back of each bound volume; but this

has the disadvantage of making it necessary to re—number

the pages, so that the page numbers of the bound volume are
different from those of the advance sheets, and the permanent
citations are not available until the bound volumes are pub-
lished.

A POSSIBLE AIEEENATIVE

 

A possible alternative method of publishing the orders
would be to publish those announced on each day immediately
after the decisions announced on the same day. This would
have whatever advantage there may be in following the chrono-
logical order; but it is not recommended, because it would
have the following disadvantages:

1. In those years when there are no opinions carried
forward from a preceding Term, the first bound volume of the
Term.would commence with orders instead of opinions; and
this would impair somewhat the appearance of those bound
volumes. The method now proposed would avoid that difficulty,
because the orders would follow the first opinions announced
during the Term.

2. It would be a much more drastic change than that
now proposed; because it would result in the orders being
scattered throughout each volume instead of being grouped in
four places, as now proposed. This is not believed to be very
important, since anyone seeking an order granting or denying
certiorari or otherwise affecting a particular case, should
look for the case in the table of cases reported, which will
show its location Just as readily, regardless of whether the
orders are grouped at the back of each volume, grouped at
the back of each preliminary print, or published in strictly
chronological order. However, it is a consideration which
might appeal to some persons.

POSSIBLE DISADVANTAGE

 

After studying this problem for more than two years, dis-
cussing it with my associates, and giving it a great amount
of thought, I know of no possible disadvantage to the method
of publication now proposed, except that the few persons who
like to read through the orders in order to compile statistics
as to the numbers of petitions for writs of certiorari, peti-
tions for re-hearing, etc., granted or denied, would have to
look in four places instead of one in each bound volume. What-
ever inconvenience this would cause to those few persons, however,

 

 - 5 _

would be reduced to a minimum by the proposal that each group
of orders be preceded by a cross-reference to the pages in
the same volume at which the other three groups of orders are
published.

An indication of how this proposed change would affect
the appearance of the bound volumes may be obtained by looking
at 520 U. S. at page 208, where the last orders of the 19h2
Term were published between the last opinion of that Term and
the first opinion of the 19h} Term. However, it is believed
that the effect would not be quite so noticeable, because we
have discontinued the dashes between the different orders.

CONCLUSION

While I dislike to recommend any change or innovation
in the method of publishing the United States Reports unless
there are good practical reasons for it, I believe that the
practical advantages of the change now proposed are ample to
Justify its adoption; and I respectfully recommend its approval.

Since I assume that you would not care to pass upon this
matter without conferring with the Associate Justices, I have
had mimeographed copies of this letter and the attached table
prepared and have delivered them to Mr. Kelley, in order to
facilitate the consideration of this proposal.

Respectfully,

WALTER WYATT, Reporter

Approved:

 

Chief Justice of the United States

 

 TIME OF PUBLICATION OF PRELIMINARY PRINTS

October Term, 19h?

 

Number of Days from Date
of Announcement to Date

rates Announced Date of Publication of Publication
Earliest ' Latest
Opinion ' Opinion

OPINIONS

Feb. 10
March 17

Nov. lO—Jan. 5
Jan. l2—Jan. 19

March 26
May 7
May 21
July lu

Feb. E-Feb. 16
March 8

March lSqur. 19
April 26

May 3~May 17
May 2h-June 7
Jmm'flhmelh
flmelh

July 50
August 10
August 25
August 27

o—-o<——<-n-¢-¢-————q-
¢-.co“--“d-“ofl0-Q
cgcuo¢—n----oc¢-—-n—

I
I
I
l
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

June 21 September 2

 

ORDERS (IN PERMANENT FORM)

 

Oct. 6—Jan. 19 March 17

Feb. 2—Apr. 26 July 1h

-4—-—11, V
y member

. Y,

,u
(1 1

or i ,'
consideru;ion of your

 

 I.-.

1
k

U

 

 §1tprrmv Gumt of thv Huifvh fitatvs
(Offirs of tits Ih‘purirr
Namalghtgtuufi. Q'.

October 1, 1948.

Dear Mr. Kelley,

Herewith is a letter which I am
addressing to the Chief Justice with
reference to a proposed change in the
method of publishing the Court's per
curiam decisions and orders.

I shall appreciate it if you will
kindly present it to the Chief Justice
at the earliest opportunity when it will
be convenient for him to consider it.

I have had mimeographed copies
made and am handing them to you herewith‘
because I an icipate that the Chief
Justice will wish to consult the Asso-
ciate Justices about this matter, and
the availability of mimeographed copies
for distribution to them may facilitate
its consideration.

Sincerely,

WALTE {WYAIE/ Reporter

54/

Mr. Paul L. Kelley,
Chambers of the Chief Justice.

 

 fiaprvmv Ojuurt of thv Sanitvh 53mins
@ffirr of ”(hr 331‘}: urtar
1-H ush'ntgtunlfl. 0:.

October I,

Honorable Fred M. Vinson,
Chief Justice of the United States,
Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. Chief Justice:

In order to expedite the publication of the 223 curiam
decisions and orders and to make them available to the
Bench and Bar in permanently citable form at much earlier
dates than is possible under the present method, I would
like to make a slight change in the method of their publi-
cation, if it meets with your approval and that of the
Court.

This would seem desirable from a practical standpoint,
because any lawyer preparing to try a case or to argue it
before an appellate court, who has found a recent decision
of a lower federal court on a point involved in his case,
needs to know whether or not this Court has granted or denied
a petition for a writ of certiorari to review that decision or
has entered any other order affecting its standing as a prece-
dent. It would seem that this office ought to make that infor-
mation available to him through the official United States
Reports as soon as possible and that it would be desirable to
make it available in a permanently citable form.

PROPOSAL

In order to accomplish this, it is proposed that, instead
of saving up all the orders for the period covered by an
entire bound volume of the United States Reports, publishing
them in Part 4 of the Preliminary Prints, and grouping all
of them at the back of the bound volume, the orders for the
period covered by each Preliminary Print be published in
permanent form and with permanent pagination at the back of
that Preliminary Print and at the corresponding four places
in each bound volume. In order to make it easy to find all
the orders in each bound volume, each group of orders would
be preceded by a cross-reference to the pages where the other
three groups of orders in that bound volume are published.

In all other respects, the present form of publishing the
orders would remain unchanged.

 

 ADVANTAGES

On the basis of experience during the last Term of the
Court, it is believed that the adoption of this proposal
would make the orders available to the profession in perma-
nently citable form from 72 to 150 days earlier than they
are now made availablee This escimate is based upon the en-
closed table, which shows for each Preliminary Print contain-
ing opinions or orders of the 1947 Term the dates of the
earliest and latest Opinion or order contained in that part,
the date of publication of the part, and the time elapsed
between the dates of the earliest and latest opinion or order
and the date of its publication in the Preliminary Print.
This table shows that the time between the announcement and
publication of the earliest opinion in each part ranged from
55 to 91 days, and that the time between the announcement and
publication of the latest Opinion in each part ranged from
52 to 74 days; but that, because all of the orders were grouped
in Part 4 of each volume, the time between the announcement
and publication of the earliest order in each volume ranged
from 116 to 165 days, and that the time between the announceu
ment and publication of the latest order in each part ranged

from 57 to 69 dayse As a matter of fact, the saving of time
would be even greater than these figures indicate; because

it would not take as long to accumulate enough material to
fill each of the first three Preliminary Prints in each volume,
and this would result in further expediting the publication

of the opinions and greatly expediting the publication of the
orders.

There would also be certain incidental advantages to the
adoption of this proposal, including the following:

1. Because of the great delay in publishing the orders
in permanent form under the present system, this office now
publishes in the back of the Preliminary Prints a brief
summary of the orders under the heading "Cases to be Reported."
(For an example, see 555 U. 8., Part 4, following page 885.)
During the last Term of Court, this material aggregated 64
pages of nine-point type, and the Government Printing Office
says that its publication cost $540. It is of no permanent
value and is not used in the bound volumes. This could be
dispensed with entirely, with a corresponding saving in cost,
if the orders were printed in permanent form at the back of
each Preliminary Print.

 

 2. The proposed new method would also simplify and
expedite somewhat the work of this office in preparing the
cumulative table of cases reported, which is published in
Part 4 of the Preliminary Print of each volume of the United
States Reports and later in the bound volume.

PAST PRACTICE

The past practice with respect to the publication of
orders may be summarized as follows:

1. They were not published at all prior to the 1886
Term, when all of them for the entire Term were published
at the back of the last volume for that Term, 122 U. SN

29 From 122 U. S. through 165 U‘ 8., the orders for the
entire Term were published at the back of the last volume for
that Term.

50 Beginning with 164 U. So and continuing down through
354 U. 3., the orders for the period covered by each volume
of the United States Reports have usually been published at

the back of that volume.

40 When the present method of publishing the orders was
adopted, the decisions of this Court were not published in
Preliminary Print form, but only in bound volume form, and
no delay resulted from publishing all the orders at the back
of the bound volumeo

5. The change now proposed would continue and bring down
to date the evolution of the method of publishing these orders,
and would afford to the Bench and Bar the full benefit of the
improvement made when this office started publishing Prelimiu
nary Prints of the United States Reports in order to make the
official text of, and the official citations to, the decisions
of this Court more promptly availableo

OTHER REPORTS

Each advance sheet of the Supreme Court Reporter, publish-
ed by the West Publishing Company, and each advance sheet of
the Lawyers' Edition, published by the Lawyers Cooperative
Publishing Company, contains some of the orders of this Court;
but they apparently do not cover the same period as the Opinions
published in the advance sheeto West Publishing Company
scatters the orders throughout the bound volumes of its Supreme
Court Reporter on the same pages as they were published in their

 

 advance sheets. The Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company
re-groups them at the back of each bound volume; but this

has the disadvantage of making it necessary to reunumber

the pages, so that the page numbers of the bound volume are
different from those of the advance sheets, and the permanent
citations are not available until the bound volumes are pub-
lishede

A POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE

A possible alternative method of publishing the orders
would be to publish those announced on each day immediately
after the decisions announced on the same day. This would
have whatever advantage there may be in following the chrono»
logical order; but it is not recommended, because it would
have the following disadvantages:

1. In those years when there are no opinions carried
forward from a preceding Term, the first bound volume of the
Term would commence with orders instead of opinions; and
this would impair somewhat the appearance of those bound
volumes. The method now proposed would avoid that difficulty,
because the orders would follow the first opinions announced
during the Term.

2. It would be a much more drastic change than that
now proposed; because it would result in the orders being
scattered throughout each volume instead of being grouped in
four places, as now proposed. This is not believed to be very
important, since anyone seeking an order granting or denying
certiorari or otherwise affecting a particular case, should
look for the case in the table of cases reported, which will
show its location just as readily, regardless of whether the
orders are grouped at the back of each volume, grouped at
the back of each preliminary print, or published in strictly
chronological order; However, it is a consideration which
might appeal to some persons.

POSSIBLE DISADVANTAGE

After studying this problem for more than two years, dist
cussing it with my associates, and giving it a great amount
of thought, I know of no possible disadvantage to the method
of publication now proposed, except that the few persons who
like to read through the orders in order to compile statistics
as to the numbers of petitions for writs of certiorari, peti-
tions for re-hearing, etc., granted or denied, would have to
look in four places instead of one in each bound volume. What-
ever inconvenience this would cause to those few persons, however,

 

 would be reduced to a minimum by the proposal that each group
of orders be preceded by a cross~reference to the pages in
the same volume at which the other three groups of orders are
published.

An indication of how this proposed change would affect
the appearance of the bound volumes may be obtained by looking
at 320 U. S. at page 208, where the last orders of the 1942
Term were published between the last opinion of that Term and
the first opinion of the 1945 Term. However, it is believed
that the effect would not be quite so noticeable, because we
have discontinued the dashes between the different orders.

CONCLUSION

While I dislike to recommend any change or innovation
in the method of publishing the United States Reports unless
there are good practical reasons for it, I believe that the
practical advantages of the change now proposed are ample to
justify its adoption; and I respectfully recommend its
approval.

Since I assume that you would not care to pass upon this
matter without conferring with the Associate Justices, I have
had mimeographed copies of this letter and the attached table
prepared and have delivered them to Mr. Kelley, in order to
facilitate the consideration of this proposal.

Respectfully,

WALTER WYATT porter

Approved:

 

Chief Justice of the United States

 

 PUBLICATION OF PRELIMINARY PRINTS

 

October Term, 1947

 

Number of Days from Date
_ of Announcement to Date
Dates Announced Date of Publication of Publication
Earliest ' Latest
Opinion ' Opinion

OPINIONS
2
352 U. 3»
Part 5

Part 4

Feb» 10
March 1?

Nov. lOaJan. 5
Jan. 12~Jano 19

555 U. S.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 5
Part 4

March 26
May 7
May 21

March 8
March 15-Apr. 19

554 U. S.
Part 1
Part 2
Fart 5
Part 4

May S-May 17
May 24~June 7
June 7-June 14
June 14

July 50

August 10
August 25
August 27

a . .- .. r- n. a. u- a. no a l. -- =- m 4-. nu n. a: «1
a «a «a. e. a. a. «p a. -< m a. an - n. .5. .. n .. .9
.a .4 -. ~¢ e. us no a. .- a m m :2. vs no .- - an no

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April 26 Y July 14
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June 21 September 2

 

ORDERS IN PERMANENT FORM)

Oct. G—Jan. 19 March 1?

Feb. 2-Apr. 26 July 14. 165

aunmnnaz‘.‘
—eg-nu.....n—..A
«ne‘e—mmmum.‘
mamnwnnu‘.‘

May S—June 21 August 27 116

(However, most of these orders had been
published earlier in temporary form without
permanent pagination. This took 64 pages
of nine-point type.)

 

 HAROLD M . STEPHENS

”“57 JUDGE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

HENRY w. EDGERTON DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
BENNETT CHAMP CLARK
WASHINGTON u D.C.

WILBUR K. MILLER
E. BARRETT PRETTYMAN
JAMES M. PROCTOR

DAVID L. BAZELON 1? w 0
CHARLES FAHY J» eDI‘uaI‘y 7, 1/51

GEORGE THOMAS WASHINGTON
CIRCUIT JUDGES

D. LAWRENCE GRDNER
RETIRED CHIEF JUDGE

Honorable Fred M. Vinson
Chief Justice of the United States
washington 13, D. C.

my dear Hr. Chief Justice:

At the Judicial Conference which met in September, 1950,
I presented a resolution of the judges of the United States Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stating that the
Council for the Circuit urged the enactment of legislation permitting
the printing of slip opinions for this court at public expense by
commercial printers, as is the authorized practice in other circuits.
I supported this resolution and recommendation by a memorandum. I
enclose herewith for your convenience a copy of the recommendatory
resolution and of the supporting memorandum.

on wi inm rem “ e h ‘ e ime his ma’ e

I ll, I th 1, emb r t at at th t t‘ tt r

was brought to the attention of the Judicial Conference——it was at

a late point on the agenda——you recomnended that the item be referred
o ne ncvisorv Commi' e t' - auino i v ac an, i r s s

t t “I V, tte , 1th t‘ r t, to t, d t 1a 0

referred.

However, here ha