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"WHEN SUPREME COURT JUSTICES REFUSE TO RETIRE:"....  JOHN DEAN 

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20010720.html

"Justices' mental problems are all too easily hidden. While on the
bench, Justice Frank Murphy, who served from 1940-49, had a serious
drug problem (Demerol addiction), and was seeing a psychoanalyst. One
biographer reports that at one point, he was illegally purchasing
drugs twice a day. Law clerks, and other justices, were deciding his
votes. No one outside the Court knew. "

"Long before Associate Justice William Rehnquist was nominated to be
chief justice, he had a serious health issue that may have impaired
his decisionmaking. For nine years, from 1972-81, the Capitol
physician, Freeman H. Cary, had prescribed a powerful hypnotic
medication, Placidyl, because of Rehnquist's chronic lower back pain. 

This powerful controlled substance is prescribed for relief from
insomnia. Its known side effects include "confused thinking, impaired
memory," and even "delirium." Rehnquist started at 500 milligrams a
day, but the dose soon tripled, to 1500 milligrams a day. 

Ignoring Rehnquist's Prescription Drug Use

By 1981, journalists covering the Supreme Court did notice that the
highly articulate Rehnquist was having increasing difficulty asking
questions from the bench. Reporters who engaged in private
conversations with Rehnquist noted that he clearly had "significant
difficulty talking." But none wrote about it.

It was not until Justice Rehnquist ended up in the hospital in January
1982, and it was learned that the Justice had been "seeing things and
hearing things that other people didn't see or hear," did reporters
say anything. 

Even when he was elevated to chief justice, Rehnquist's health records
remained sealed during his confirmation hearings. More than this, the
Senate Judiciary Committee agreed in advance not to ask him any
questions about his health. He did testify about the cloak of secrecy
regarding the health of justices, but not about his own condition.

"I think judges have much more of a tendency to 'pull the wagons
around' or something like that � particularly on our Court, where
there are only nine seats, the health of every individual Justice is
an endless subject of speculation," Rehnquist told the Senate. As
chief justice he has continued to keep his, and the other justices',
health well hidden. We can only assume that Rehnquist is in better
mental health than at the time of his 1982 hospitalization. "

Dr P