one of those was written by shon hopwood. >> shon hopwood: and one morning, a friend of mine came runningd screaming my name, "shon, shon, sho a it said the court had granted john fellers' case. >> kroft: what went through your mind? >> shon hopwood: i was shocked. i was shocked that the court had granted the case, and that i had done something that, you know, lawyers wait their whole lives to do, and done it the first time. >> seth waxman: it's not that unusual for prisoners to file their own petitions. what is freakishly unusual is for one of those petitions to be granted. >> kroft: seth waxman, a prominent appellate lawyer and the former solicitor general of the united states, is not easily impressed. but when he was asked to argue the fellers case before the supreme court, he said he would do it only if shon hopwood would work from prison as part of the team. >> waxman: i wanted him to be involved, because i was really curious. it seemed, actually, almost inconceivable that somebody with his level of education and his level of exposure to the life of the law could actually write a muc