WWW- The Supreme Court takes on some weighty issues tomorrow, but the biggest question before the court is whether conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist will hang up his gavel.
The court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on government property in two cases out of Kentucky and Texas that test the separation of church and state.
The justices also could decide whether to take up the case of Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller of The New York Times, who were found in contempt of court for refusing to testify before a grand jury and disclose the name of the source who outed a CIA spy.
If the justices don't take the case, the reporters will be facing prison time.
But what Rehnquist, 80, does could overshadow whatever the court rules in those important cases.
"The big thing on Monday will be the Ten Commandments, but I believe all of us who watch the court will be watching what Rehnquist does," said David Garrow of the Emory Law School in Atlanta.
"I believe very firmly if Rehnquist was intending to leave, he would have announced it before now," he said.
Rehnquist has been battling thyroid cancer. And speculation that he might not be long for the court has run rampant since he returned to the bench in March with a tracheotomy tube sticking out of his neck.
But the chief justice, who was appointed to the court by President Richard Nixon, has refused to give in to his disease. He has continued to deliberate the pressing legal questions facing the nation's highest court.
"Typically, when a justice steps down there is a vacancy until that person is replaced," said Dick Howard of the University of Virginia. "But he can stay on the bench until his successor is chosen. It's really up to him."
There also has been speculation that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, an important swing vote on the divided court, might soon retire. Her husband, John Jay O'Connor, is ill and recently moved home to Arizona.
O'Connor, now 75, became the first woman to serve on the nation's highest court after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
