What impact will Rehnquists absence have on the court?
It’s most likely to be felt at the weekly conferences that justices hold to vote on cases they have just heard, and to decide what new cases the court should consider. Rehnquist usually runs the conference. If he has voted with the majority to decide a case, he chooses which justice writes the opinion. That enables him to shape what the court will say on issues on which the justices often are split, such as the death penalty or states’ rights. “The conference is where there’s give and take, and things are worked out,” says Thomas Lee, law professor at Fordham University in New York and a clerk during the 2001-02 term. “If the chief can’t physically be there, there’s a real loss of that collegiality.” Q: How has the court dealt with justices who are gone for a long time because of a serious illness, or who are incapacitated but insist on remaining on the court? A: Justice William O. Douglas, then 77, spent much of the spring of 1975 away from the court, recovering from a stroke. When he
