By Joan Biskupic
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 26, 1998; Page A15

The Supreme Court votes on cases in a small, wood-paneled conference room that is unremarkable save for a double-tiered crystal chandelier. The nine justices meet alone, arranged around the rectangular table by seniority: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist at one end; Justice John Paul Stevens, the next most senior justice, at the other end; and the rest on the sides without much elbow room.

Since the first Monday in October, they have convened dozens of times, casting their votes. Opinions have been assigned and written. Rulings announced. It's like clockwork.

But not in June. Fast upon us, the traditional last month of the term makes the staid, steady Supreme Court seem wild and crazy.

Deadlines for opinion-writing – the majority view, dissents and concurrences – come with furious speed. And just when an opinion is due, suddenly what seemed so clear at conference is muddy.

Justice David H. Souter once wrote in a memo to his colleagues that he originally had voted a particular way, "but I argued myself to the other view while writing" an opinion.

"I have been all the way around the mulberry bush on this case," Rehnquist once said in June.

In a separate June case, he tried to lighten the atmosphere by telling his colleagues, "The theme of this . . . draft is a very positive one, and it can be summed up in the following verse from a once popular song: 'Accentuate the positive/ Eliminate the negative/ Latch on to the affirmative/ Don't mess with Mr. In Between.' "

District lawyer Ann M. Kappler said that although it has been a decade since she worked as a law clerk for now retired Justice Harry A. Blackmun, "When I think of June, I definitely still think of the court." She said personalities changed and lives were reordered.

"Marriages got put on hold. Friendships disappeared," said Rory K. Little, once a clerk to the late Justice William J. Brennan Jr. and now a law professor at the University of California at Hastings. "Nothing focuses the mind of a procrastinator like a deadline."

"The process reminds me of the crunch everybody goes through right before tax time," said Laurie Miller, who was a clerk to now retired Justice Byron R. White and is now a lawyer in the District. "Even the most organized people who keep good records inevitably have an uncomfortable crunch period. But here, you can't get an extension."

The justices will hand down about 90 signed opinions this term. So far, 57 have been announced. Only one case remains for a special oral argument.

On June 8, the justices will hear arguments on whether the attorney-client privilege dissolves upon a client's death. The dispute arises from Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's effort to obtain the confidential notes of a conversation White House counsel Vincent Foster had with his lawyer before Foster committed suicide.

Among the big cases already heard, the justices have yet to announce rulings in three disputes concerning federal law against sexual harassment: When are employers financially responsible for a supervisor's sexual misconduct? When is a school district liable for a teacher's sexual harassment of a student? And, can an employer be held liable for sexual harassment if the victim never suffered any tangible job loss or detriment and didn't succumb to her boss's advances?

Other big cases test the constitutionality of the National Endowment for the Arts decency standards, whether New York or New Jersey can claim authority over Ellis Island and when police can be held responsible for injuries arising from a crash caused by a high-speed police chase.

Rehnquist said in a book he wrote about how the court works, "It is not as if we were trying to find a formula for squaring the circle. . . . The law is at best an inexact science. . . . There simply is no demonstrably 'right' answer to the question involved in many of our difficult cases."

But whatever a majority decides does indeed become the answer. As Justice Robert H. Jackson said 35 years ago: "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible because we are final."