He Was Supreme Court's 'Living History'

He was the voice that opened Brown v. Board of Education, though almost no one knew his name. George Hutchinson, the Supreme Court's last official crier, died last month at the age of 102, reports the Washington Post. From 1952 to 1962, Hutchinson began nearly every argument day with "Oyez, oyez, oyez!," banged an unusual handle-less gavel (as described in this 2019 interview), and quietly managed the pages who ferried notes and water to the justices. His tenure tracked a watershed era that included the court's school desegregation ruling and other major decisions, even as he handled such side tasks as relaying World Series scores to baseball-obsessed justices.

A fourth-generation Washingtonian, Hutchinson started at the court as a 15-year-old page in 1938, left to serve in World War II, then returned to rise through the marshal's office and into the crier role dating back to the late 1800s. He later became the first clerk of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and worked at a law firm until age 100. Court historians called him "a living history" of US judicial customs. For the full portrait of Hutchinson's life inside a secretive institution, more here.