Washington – Teary-eyed Supreme Court justices, a somber President Bush and one- time law clerk John Roberts led a long line of Americans paying their last respects to William Rehnquist, the chief justice whose conservatism helped drive the high court toward the right.
Washington protocol underscored a changing of the guard Tuesday. Roberts, the former Rehn quist clerk named to succeed his old boss as chief justice, was among the pallbearers carrying the flag-draped casket up the court’s long steps and into the Great Hall.
Rehnquist died Saturday at 80 after battling thyroid cancer.
Bush, his head bowed, and first lady Laura Bush spent about a minute standing near the casket and a short time looking at the portrait of Rehnquist on a stand nearby. Justice Antonin Scalia escorted the couple.
Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. today at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, open to friends and family. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney plan to attend, and Bush is to speak, along with retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Rehnquist family members.
Flags, including the one above the court, were at half- staff in honor of Rehn quist, a Nixon appointee who served on the court for 33 years and was elevated to chief justice in 1986 by President Reagan.
In an acknowledgment of the period of mourning, Roberts’ confirmation hearings, which had been scheduled to begin Tuesday in the Senate, were delayed until Monday.
In a simple morning ceremony, six justices, along with former clerks and court staff, lined the steps outside the court, awaiting the arrival of the hearse bearing Rehnquist’s casket. Seven men and one woman – most of them former Rehnquist clerks – carried the casket past the line that included a weeping O’Connor.
