• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Rehnquist Undergoing Chemotherapy

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 November 2004, 03:00 CST

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court meets this week with just eight members, as its notoriously tenacious leader undergoes chemotherapy and radiation treatment for an apparently serious type of thyroid cancer.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist backtracked from an earlier plan to return to work Monday. Instead, he issued a statement from home about the treatment.

The election eve disclosure by the 80-year-old justice underscores the near certainty that the next president will make at least one appointment to the Supreme Court and probably more.

Rehnquist did not say what type of thyroid cancer he has, how far it has progressed nor the prognosis.

Dr. Leonard Wartofsky, a thyroid cancer expert at Washington Hospital Center, said the combined chemotherapy-radiation indicates he has anaplastic thyroid cancer, a fast-growing form that is almost always fatal.

He said Rehnquist, a longtime smoker, will likely be exhausted by his treatment. Patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer often have four to six weeks of daily visits for radiation, and multiple rounds of chemotherapy that can span several months, he said.

"You're also facing the psyche of the individual who is getting hit with the fact that they're at the end of their life. They have maybe three months or six months. Would you want to continue working if that's all you have left in your life?" he asked.

Rehnquist's statement made no mention of leaving the court. It was a more somber announcement than the one a week ago, when he first made public that he had been hospitalized for cancer treatment but said he planned to be back at work in a week.

"According to my doctors, my plan to return to the office today was too optimistic," said Rehnquist, who spent a week in the hospital and had a tracheotomy. "While at home, I am working on court matters, including opinions for cases already argued. I am, and will, continue to be in close contact with my colleagues, my law clerks and members of the Supreme Court staff."

News of Rehnquist's cancer has energized conservative and liberal groups, which have tried to draw voters' attention to the court's delicate balance on issues like abortion, affirmative action and the death penalty.

The spotlight would have been heightened in the final week of the campaign if Rehnquist had been more forthcoming about his condition, said Dennis Hutchinson, a Supreme Court expert at the University of Chicago Law School.

"He doesn't want to be a factor" in the election, Hutchinson said. "The one thing all members of the court hate is the assumption that they are partisan or sensitive to partisan politics."

About 80 percent of people with anaplastic thyroid cancer die within a year, even with treatment, according to the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy.

Rehnquist, a Republican known for a stern no-nonsense style, has been the court's conservative leader for a generation. He voted with the other four conservative justices in the 5-4 Bush v. Gore ruling that decided the last presidential election. He has said he would be more likely to retire with a Republican in the White House.

Until now, Rehnquist's most serious health problem has been a bad back that often forces him to stand and stretch during arguments and has limited his tennis playing.

He can still vote in the cases being argued this week, by reviewing transcripts and briefs.

No justice has left the court since 1994, a modern record. Justices John Paul Stevens, 84, and Sandra Day O'Connor, 74, are considered those most likely to step aside after Rehnquist.

Whoever wins the election, the Senate confirmation process is expected to be difficult.

"The court is so finely balanced right now any change in the personnel will trigger a struggle, whether it's the chief justice or the most junior justice," said John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who worked in the Bush administration's Justice Department.

---

On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

More News in this Category