US Chief Justice Roberts in hospital after fall

WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) US Chief Justice John Roberts, 52, was taken to a hospital after falling at his home in Maine, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said.

Spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Roberts was taken by ambulance to a hospital yesterday as a precaution and that he was ''conscious and alert'' after the mid-afternoon fall. She did not have details of the fall at his home near Port Clyde, Maine.

Arberg said Roberts was taken to Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport. ''He is being examined,'' she said. A spokeswoman at the hospital declined to comment, citing patient confidentiality laws.

Roberts is the youngest of the nine Supreme Court members.

He has no known medical conditions.

The area around Port Clyde, midway up the coast of Maine, is known as a summer vacation spot. Roberts and his wife, Jane, purchased the home about a year ago.

The Supreme Court has been in its three-month summer recess since the end of last month.

Roberts, a conservative, was appointed to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. He took his seat on September 29, 2005, succeeding William Rehnquist, who died of cancer.

Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Bush's other appointment to the court, helped push the court to the right in its just-ended term on issues such as abortion and race in schools.

Reuters SAM VP0458