As Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. said in announcing the retirement and praising Wagner, “few outside this Court are aware of the reporter’s important role” in preparing opinions for publication and the syllabus or summary of the cases.
It was an apt day for Roberts to make that statement, because the Court had issued nearly 500 pages of opinions that day — an unusually high number — all of which had been edited and processed through Wagner’s office in the frantic days and weeks before the Court’s recess.
