WASHINGTON – Well-heeled clients pay tens of thousands of dollars to hit the legal jackpot—U.S. Supreme Court review of their appeals. But on Sept. 25, the court decided to hear cases filed by two people who couldn’t afford or didn’t bother to hire an attorney.

One was written in pencil and submitted by an inmate at a federal prison in Pennsylvania. The other was filed by a man with no telephone living on Guam.