What are the motifs in The Pelican Brief by John Grisham?

Death is a recurring idea in this story. People die like flies in John Grisham's The Pelican Brief, and because of two characters, death is also an intellectual theme. Curmudgeonly 91-year-old U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abraham Rosenberg has been paralyzed in a wheelchair and on oxygen for seven years since suffering a second stroke, but refuses to retire until a Democratic is in the White House to name his successor.