Breaking: Was Chief Justice Rehnquist Addicted to Painkillers?
We're reading Tony Mauro's super-juicy article as fast as we can. Highlights and discussion will follow shortly.
Okay, we're done. Here are some excerpts:
The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s Senate confirmation battles in 1971 and 1986 were more intense and political than previously known, according to a newly released FBI file that also offers dramatic new details about Rehnquist’s 1981 hospitalization and dependence on a painkiller....In July 1986, when President Ronald Reagan nominated Rehnquist to be chief justice, the Justice Department asked the FBI to interview witnesses who were preparing to testify that Rehnquist had intimidated minority voters as a Republican Party official in Arizona in the early 1960s. According to a memo in the Rehnquist file, an unnamed FBI official cautioned that the department “should be sensitive to the possibility that Democrats could charge the Republicans of misusing the FBI and intimidating the Democrats’ witnesses.” But then-Assistant Attorney General John Bolton — who more recently served as ambassador to the United Nations — signed off on the request and said he would “accept responsibility should concerns be raised about the role of the FBI.” It is unclear whether the FBI ever interviewed the witnesses.
John Bolton? That guy is everywhere! Did he have the walrus moustache back then?
More discussion -- including tales of Rehnquist's "bizarre ideas and outrageous thoughts," his paranoia that the CIA was out to get him, and his attempt to escape from a hospital while in pajamas -- after the jump.
While he was alive, Chief Justice Rehnquist sometimes seemed a bit dry to us. But perhaps we were mistaken. This is pretty colorful stuff:
Also in 1986, the FBI conducted an intensive investigation into Rehnquist’s dependence on Placidyl, a strong painkiller that he had taken since the early 1970s for insomnia and back pain. Rehnquist’s bout with drug dependence had been made public in 1981, when he was hospitalized for his back pain and suffered withdrawal symptoms when he stopped taking the drug.The FBI’s 1986 report on Rehnquist’s drug dependence was not released at the time of his confirmation, though some Democratic senators wanted it made public. But it is in Rehnquist’s now-public file, and it contains new details about his behavior during his weeklong hospital stay in December 1981. One physician whose name is blocked out told the FBI that Rehnquist expressed “bizarre ideas and outrageous thoughts. He imagined, for example, that there was a CIA plot against him.”
Whoa. Actually, double whoa. Sure, the CIA is out to get lots of people -- that's their job. But why would they be after someone like Rehnquist, a longtime public servant and high-ranking federal official?
The doctor said Rehnquist “had also gone to the lobby in his pajamas in order to try to escape.” The doctor said Rehnquist’s delirium was consistent with him suddenly stopping his apparent daily dose of 1400 milligrams of the drug — nearly three times higher than the 500-milligram maximum recommended by physicians. The doctor said, “Any physician who prescribed it was practicing very bad medicine, bordering on malpractice.”
The image of a pajama-clad Rehnquist trying to bust out of a hospital just floors us. If this were a movie, we'd call it Justice, Interrupted. Or maybe One Flew Over One First Street.
This next part is kinda scary, considering Rehnquist's high station. Check it out:
Though his name was blacked out, Dr. Freeman Cary, then the attending physician of the Capitol — whose services are also available to Supreme Court justices — told agents that he began prescribing Placidyl to Rehnquist in 1972 for insomnia and continued to do so until the 1981 episode. For six or seven months before Rehnquist’s hospitalization in 1981, Cary indicated, Rehnquist was re-filling three-month prescriptions for Placidyl every month — suggesting he was taking close to 1,500 milligrams daily instead of 500.When Rehnquist went into George Washington University Hospital in December 1981, he was seeking relief for his back but, according to some of the physicians interviewed, also knew he had a drug problem. Rehnquist’s episode with delusions came when doctors ended his Placidyl. Doctors then resumed his high dosage so as to wean him off the drug slowly, reducing gradually until he stopped taking the drug altogether in February 1982. At that point, doctors said Rehnquist was cured of his dependence.
Over the years, William Rehnquist mellowed as a jurist. He went from being "the Lone Ranger" of the right to a (somewhat) more moderate justice. Could the evolution of his jurisprudence be connected in any way to his alleged drug dependency -- and his being cured of it, in the early 1980's?
The article closes with this great story:
The level of detail is humorous at times. In the 1969 background check that preceded his nomination as assistant attorney general, Rehnquist acknowledged he might have been arrested in 1942.Then a Kenyon College freshman, Rehnquist said, he went to Kent State University to visit a friend one weekend. Because of some miscommunication, the friend had left town, leaving Rehnquist with nowhere to stay. He said he “had no money with which to obtain a hotel room. I therefore lay down on the courthouse lawn at Ravenna, a neighboring town, to spend the night,” Rehnquist told the FBI. “A policeman came along, told me that sleeping on the courthouse lawn was not allowed, that he would arrange for me to sleep in jail. This he did, and I believe, though I am not certain, that I was charged with vagrancy.” Rehnquist added he was released the next morning and no further action was taken.
We can't help wondering: Would the late Chief have been sympathetic towards this Ninth Circuit ruling?
Rehnquist FBI File Sheds New Light on Confirmation Battles, Drug Dependence [Legal Times]
(13) Comments
I used to carpool with Mark Cannon, Renquist's admin., assistant at SCOTUS.
Back then, I was an aspiring law student and a guest of Cannon's best friend in VA. Once I dared asked Cannon for encouragement on getting a law clerk position with one of the justices. Cannon told me flat out, only the very 'brightest' men who attended Ivy League schools, were chosen to be clerks.
Oh, well, now I know Cannon, and his boss, were just a bunch of pale skin, arrogant, privileged old men.
Cannon may very well have been arrogant, pale-skinned, and privileged, but you can hardly fault him for giving you a dose of reality. The odds of any aspiring law student making it to the elect are slim. It sounds to me like good advice: To increase your odds, you should go to an ivy league school. Next, be a superstar. Then you might have a shot.
What reality are you talking about, when we now come to find out his boss was a drug addict?.
Yep, a dose of reality--of pale testosterone with a few overdoses of Placydil pills to make one think write a magnificent legal opinion:
In case you havent' read, Sandra O'Connor recently pointed out how the stats show the majority of clerks come from the pale testosterone gender population. She tried to encourage and hire female clerks while she served. Kennedy (who was my professor) hasn't hired a female law clerk, now what up with that?
Oh, and by the way. Cannon was also a male shovenist.
I vividly recall when Cannon made a comment while carpooling, that he and Renquist were attempting to find qualified candidates to submit to the Reagan white house to fill the vacant seat, which O'connor subsequently filled. I specifically recall Cannon stating he and Reqnquist didn't think we had one competent female on the federal circuits, and that O'connor wasn't qualified. I was 23 at the time and fresh out of college, working for a congressman on Capitol Hill. I knew Cannon, because he was a mormon and I attended church meetings in the same ward.
Come to find out, Sandra briefly dated Renquist, but I think she was way more qualified than the popping pill addict. Just my mere two cent. Toodles.
One final Addendum: Please don't tell me Georgetown is an Ivy league. We all know some male law clerks at SCOTUS have come from there.and it is no Ivy League!
And by the way, the student who AmJured my class, Kennedy's con-law course, was a female. So please, please tell us "G" why he won't hire females?
Platypus, if you think "shovenist" is a word, and you can't spell "Rehnquist," Cannon probably did you a favor by telling you to take a hike.
In August 1981, when O'Connor was nominated, it wouldn't have been sexist to say that there wasn't a sufficiently qualified female on the federal courts of appeals. At that time, there were very 11 women on the courts of appeals, all of whom had been appointed by Jimmy Carter, and none of whom had served more than a couple of years. Run the search at fjc.gov, and you'll get Betty Fletcher, R.B. Ginsburg, Amalya Kearse, Cornelia Kennedy, Carolyn Dineen King, Phyllis Kravitch, Dorothy Nelson, Mary Schroeder, Dolores Sloviter, and Patricia Wald.
Many of these women turned out to be excellent judges, but in 1981 it would not have been sexist to suggest that none of them were Supreme Court material in the Reagan administration.
I meant "only 11 women"
The list of Justice Kennedy's law clerks is here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_law_clerks_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Anthony_Kennedy
Your question is "what's up with" your contention that Justice Kennedy hasn't hired any female law clerks.
The answer is that he has. Admittedly, the majority are male, but your contention was not that he has unjustifiably hired mostly male clerks, it was that he had hired no female law clerks at all.
The site indicates that there is a female law clerk (either that or a man named Lisa) working for him right now, and that she is by no means the first.
Cannon should have told the carpool driver to stop at McDonalds and let you out.
Rehnquist's drug addiction is fairly old news (I think there was an article about it in Slate just after his death), but the great untold part of the story may be, unless I'm mistaken, that John Roberts was working for him when he was at his most batshit best.
I read the Slate piece just as the confirmation hearings for Roberts began, and the entire time Roberts was doing his flawless dance of non-committal I was dying to hear somebody ask him the most basic question about Rehnquist and working for him.
You knew it was never going to come up, but just to hear the line of questioning would have been priceless.
"Judge Roberts, you've talked about your close working relationship with the Chief Justice, and how you weren't necessarily expressing your own opinions during that period, and we've heard you say over and over that you will decide each case on its merits. But perhaps you can fill in some details of that working relationship for us. The late Chief Justice, a great and honored man, was not only a fierce conservative but also a fierce drug addict during the time that you worked with him. Were you aware of Rehnquist's drug dependency, and did you see any of its effects? Where were you and what was going on back at the office when he was in his pajamas trying to escape from the hospital?"
Oh, G and you are now the self annointed grammar police? I don't care to use my spelling check, when I type 130 wds a minute. Comprendes?
Your excuse that Renquist and Cannon were not sexists because somehow the Reagan admin., is pathetic. Reagan did appoint O'Connor did he not?
And you found ONE female by the name of Lisa? Oh, and of course you did the research in the unreliable wikipedia. Are you sure you're a lawyer?
Oh goodie--Kennedy was appointed in 1987, and you only found ONE female law clerk. Bravo for your brilliant illustrious research.
Why don't you take your meds, and chill out, o.K. no one asked you to recite the 11 female judges.
I bet you were the annoying 'teacher's pet' during grade school.
Zhiv,
Roberts was probably writing the decisions which limited the 4th amendment, while the chief was in his pijamas in the pshyco., ward (lol).
Actually, platypus, Kennedy has had at least 11 female clerks, including the current clerk the other commenter pointed out. Click on the link and count.
Also, typing 130 words per minute and not using spell check is not an excuse for thinking that chauvinist is spelled "shovenist." Your misspelling is a sign that you don't read much, just as your comments indicate that you are a bit of a douche. (And the commenter would be a member of the self-anointed spelling police, not the "self annointed grammar police.") That's all.
If you don't understand my post, I'm not going to bother to explain it to you. If you follow the link, there's more than one female Kenendy clerk---in fact more than one named "Lisa."
The 11 female judges was the result of a 45-second search on fjc.gov.
And Kennedy started at the Supreme Court in 1988.
When it only takes 5 minutes of internet research to show that you're a moron, I have to think that Cannon's response to you was correct (assuming that your story is even true).