Did John Marshall Harlan II Misuse the Word 'Suppletive'?

Abstract

In a 1980 interview, Henry Putzel, Jr., the 13th Reporter of Decisions for the Supreme Court of the United States, related a story in which Justice John Marshall Harlan is portrayed as insisting on using "suppletive" -- a word with an inapt if not nonsense definition -- in his concurring opinion in Labine v. United States, 401 U.S. 532, 540 (1971), over the Reporter's objection. The article pits Harlan against Putzel in three rounds of heavyweight semantic competition. The winner might surprise you.

Keywords: Supreme Court, Reporter of Decisions, Harlan, Putzel, suppletive, dictionaries, Legal Process