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A convicted bank robber discovered he could argue his case as well or better than any lawyer. He prevailed and is now out of prison.

He's planning on going to law school.

Shon R. Hopwood was not a particularly sophisticated bank robber.

“We would walk into a bank with firearms, tell people to get down, take the money and run,” he said the other day, recalling five robberies in rural Nebraska in 1997 and 1998 that yielded some $200,000 and more than a decade in federal prison.

Mr. Hopwood spent much of that time in the prison law library, and it turned out he was better at understanding the law than breaking it. He transformed himself into something rare at the top levels of the American bar, and unheard of behind bars — an accomplished Supreme Court practitioner.

He prepared his first petition for certiorari — a request that the Supreme Court hear a case — for a fellow inmate on a prison typewriter in 2002. Since Mr. Hopwood was not a lawyer, the only name on the brief was that of the other prisoner, John Fellers.

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Michael Jackson's physician pleads not guilty to manslaughter charges.
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While much of the rest of the federal government gets things done, Congress doesn't, and therefore it really doesn't matter whether our elected officials go to work or not in the blizzard weather hitting D.C.

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