JUDICIARY : High Court Sprinting to End of Term : Year produces share of odd opinions, sharp exchanges, speculation about justices.

This week, the Supreme Court is expected to issue its final written rulings for the term and adjourn for the summer. As usual, the end-of-the term rush has produced its share of odd opinions, sharp exchanges and speculation about the justices.

Here are a few examples:

* The Narrow Tailor: Sometimes, the court’s doctrines don’t exactly fit the issue to be decided. Consider the majority-black congressional district in North Carolina served by Democratic Rep. Melvin Watt. “We now hold,” said a 5-4 majority, that this district “is not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.”

Of course, anyone who has seen a map of the district knows it is probably the most narrowly tailored district in American history. It stretches for 160 miles and is only as wide as Interstate 85 in several places.

The court uses the phrase “narrowly tailored” to describe a limited exception to a constitutional rule, such as free speech or the ban on racial classifications. In the redistricting cases, however, the court actually means districts such as Watt’s are overly tailored based on race.

It is not the first time the phrase has raised eyebrows. Five years ago, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, speaking for the court, upheld an Indiana law prohibiting nude dancing in bars against a free-speech challenge on the grounds that the required G-string was a “narrowly tailored” restriction.

* Wisconsin Winter: A native of the Milwaukee area, the chief justice has not forgotten the harsh winters of his youth. He recently cited the cold winter temperatures as the basis for Milwaukee police to say they had a “reasonable suspicion” that justified questioning two California men who arrived there in mid-December.

“Milwaukee’s average daily high temperature in that month is 31 degrees, and its average daily low is 17 degrees; the percentage of possible sunshine is only 38%,” he wrote. “It is a reasonable inference that a Californian stopping in Milwaukee in December is either there to transact business or to visit family and friends.”

After stopping the two men outside their motel room and searching their car, police learned the pair were there to “transact business” in the form of selling narcotics. Lawyers joked after reading the opinion they had never heard of a Wisconsin winter being deemed a form of probable cause to justify police searches.

* Chief Justice Ginsburg? Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) have recently attacked President Clinton’s supposedly “liberal judges.” They have named names and singled out certain decisions as soft on crime. But the Republican leaders have not mentioned Clinton’s first Supreme Court nominee, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

And no wonder. Ginsburg has surprised liberal advocates by siding with the conservatives in important criminal cases.

In March, Ginsburg cast the deciding fifth vote to rule that prosecutors can seize property from “innocent owners” if it has been used in a crime. The decision took away Tina Bennis’ family car that her husband used to pick up a prostitute. The 11-year-old Pontiac was worth “practically nothing,” Ginsburg commented.

Two weeks ago, the justice cast the fifth vote to rule that a Montana man charged with an intentional murder had no right to tell the jury he was blind drunk at the time of the crime.

Asked about Ginsburg’s criminal rulings, Georgetown law professor Mark Tushnet said: “She’s running for chief justice.” Tushnet was repeating the common speculation that Ginsburg might well be chosen to succeed Rehnquist in the next four years if Clinton is elected to a second term.

* We Fools. In April, Justice Antonin Scalia spoke of his Christian faith at a prayer breakfast in Jackson, Miss. The “worldly wise” will snicker at deeply held religious convictions and a Christian’s belief in miracles, he said.

“We are fools for Christ’s sake,” he added, quoting St. Paul. To Scalia’s surprise, a local reporter was there and filed a story about his comments. The next day, his quotes appeared in an article on the front page of the Washington Post.

Scalia’s wife, Maureen, who often punctures her husband’s pomposity, told friends that the newspaper quote was accurate, except “they left out the comma.”