Rehnquist Taken to Hospital With Fever

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who is fighting thyroid cancer, developed a fever Thursday and was taken for evaluation to a Virginia hospital, a Supreme Court spokesman said.

He was allowed to go home after undergoing tests at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, spokesman Ed Turner said.

It was the second time this summer that the 80-year-old chief justice had gone to the hospital with a fever. In mid-July, he was hospitalized for two days for what officials described as observation and tests.

The July hospitalization set off intense speculation that Rehnquist was about to retire, despite a court spokeswoman’s downplaying of the incident. On July 14, the day he was released, Rehnquist put out a statement to dispel the “unfounded rumors” of his imminent retirement.

“I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits,” said Rehnquist, whose thyroid cancer was diagnosed in October.

Since his July hospitalization, Rehnquist had been working most days at the court, and it was there that he fell ill Thursday. Spending the summer recess in Washington is not his usual routine; in previous years, he escaped the capital’s heat and humidity at his vacation home in Vermont.

Illness aside, this is a special summer for Rehnquist. President Bush’s nominee to succeed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, John G. Roberts Jr., was one of Rehnquist’s law clerks during the 1981-82 term, and the chief justice has spoken of Roberts’ achievements with pride.

In 1989, Roberts argued his first case before the Supreme Court after Rehnquist asked him to represent, pro bono, a man sued by the government for filing false Medicaid claims. The man had already been penalized criminally, with a fine and prison time.

Roberts argued that the suit amounted to double jeopardy, and he won the case.

If Roberts is confirmed by the Senate and Rehnquist is still on the bench, it will be the first time a former clerk serves on the Supreme Court with the justice who hired him.