Roberts suffered a benign idiopathic seizure

July 31, 2007

Washington, DC - Chief Justice John Roberts is in the hospital after suffering a seizure and falling at his island vacation home off the coast of Maine Monday afternoon.

Doctors said a neurological exam "showed no cause for concern," according to a statement issued Monday evening by the Supreme Court.

Doctors diagnosed the seizure as a "benign idiopathic seizure," similar to one suffered by the chief justice in 1993, the court statement said. An idiopathic seizure is one with no identifiable physiological cause.

Roberts, 52, received only "minor scrapes" in the fall, but, as a precaution, he will remain overnight at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine, the statement said.

A source close to the chief justice said that he fell five to 10 feet after the seizure. He remained conscious after the fall, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.

John Roberts

John Glover Roberts, Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is the seventeenth and current Chief Justice of the United States.

Before joining the Supreme Court on September 29, 2005, Roberts was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Previously, he spent 14 years in private law practice and held positions in Republican administrations in the U.S. Department of Justice and Office of the White House Counsel.

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