William H. Rehnquist, chief justice of the US Supreme Court, has been hospitalized with a fever, a setback that fuelled more retirement speculation about the 33-year veteran of the nation's highest court.

The 80-year-old Rehnquist was taken by ambulance to Virginia Hospital Centre in the Washington suburb of Arlington on Tuesday night and was admitted for observation and tests, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said on Wednesday (local time). She would not release his condition or any other information.

Despite having thyroid cancer, Rehnquist has maintained a regular work routine and defied expectations that bad health would force him to leave the court that stands as the final arbiter of whether a law is valid under the US Constitution.

"This hospitalization has to shake his faith a little bit," said Stephen Wermiel, an American University law professor who specializes in the Supreme Court.

President George W. Bush was unaware of Rehnquist's hospitalization. He was in the Oval Office when Andy Card, the White House chief of staff, and spokesman Scott McClellan informed him at mid-afternoon of news reports that Rehnquist was ill.

There was no indication whether the news would affect the president's selection of a candidate, or the timing of an announcement, to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who announced this month she was stepping down.

Rehnquist began receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments for thyroid cancer in October. He has said little publicly about his prognosis and nothing about his future at the court.

A month ago, most court watchers thought Rehnquist's retirement from his lifetime position was inevitable. Many justices have kept working until the end. In the court's 215-year history, it has had just 15 chief justices before Rehnquist, and eight served until their deaths.

"I understand why he wouldn't want to retire. If he quit he'd feel like he was taking one step in the grave," said Richard Friedman, a law professor at the University of Michigan. "He's probably enjoying all the fuss."

Camera crews were staked outside the hospital on Wednesday evening. It was unclear whether the fever that put Rehnquist there was related to his cancer.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, who has a type of cancer involving the lymph nodes, said doctors "take extensive precautions with cancer patients who have elevated symptoms."

The chief justice had been coming to the court daily but did not show up as usual on Wednesday morning. Court officials initially refused to say why he was absent or explain unusual happenings at Rehnquist's Arlington home. Eventually she issued a two-sentence statement saying Rehnquist was hospitalized for a fever and was undergoing tests.

It was the second time in less than four months that Rehnquist was taken by ambulance to the hospital. In March, he was brought in with breathing problems. He did not stay overnight then.

Rehnquist has a tracheotomy tube that helps him breathe. He has been treated since October for the cancer, undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. The illness led to a five-month absence from the bench, although he continued working at home and at the court during his convalescence.

The chief justice has refused to say whether he plans to retire, telling reporters camped outside his house last week: "That's for me to know and you to find out."

Source: China Daily