A Florida man's bid to become the first illegal immigrant to obtain a law license in the United States met skepticism Tuesday from most of the state's Supreme Court justices.

Jose Godinez-Samperio came to the U.S. with his parents on visitors' visas when he was 9 years old, but the family never returned to Mexico. He graduated from New College in Florida, earned a law degree from Florida State University and passed the state bar exam last year.

"He's somebody who has done everything he's supposed to do. He complied with every rule," Godinez-Samperio's attorney and former American Bar Association president Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, said after the hearing.

Godinez-Samperio's case is one of a few across the country. Illegal immigrants in New York and California also want to practice law there.

The Board of Bar Examiners in Florida found no reason to deny the 25-year-old Godinez-Samperio a license but asked the state's high court for guidance, said the board's lawyer, Robert Blythe.

Opponents of a proposed $10 billion oil refinery in southeastern South Dakota on Wednesday asked the state Supreme Court to strike down a state permit that would let a Texas company to begin construction.

Gabrielle Sigel, an attorney for three groups fighting the Hyperion Energy Center, said the Board of Minerals and Environment erred when it approved an air quality permit last year because its study did not include a full-blown environmental impact statement.

Sigel said the refinery would be the largest industrial project in state history and that the preparation of an impact statement should involve other agencies and evaluate a project's broader effect. State officials abused their discretion by bypassing that process, she said.

Attorneys for Hyperion and the board countered that an environmental impact statement is not required by state law that and board members took into account all relevant environmental issues when issuing the air quality permit.

The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources can require an impact statement but decided it wasn't necessary. "The board agreed," said Rick Addison, a Dallas-based attorney representing Hyperion.

Well-heeled clients pay tens of thousands of dollars to hit the legal jackpot — Supreme Court review of their appeals. But on Tuesday, 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.

Neither case seems destined to join the ranks of Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark 1960s case filed by a prisoner with no lawyer that established a criminal defendant's right to a lawyer. Both show, however, that when the court is looking to resolve finicky legal issues and the right case shows up, it doesn't matter whether the author of the appeal wears a natty suit or prison garb.

Longtime Supreme Court practitioner Tom Goldstein called the granting of two such lawyerless cases at the same time "unheard of." But both cases chosen by the justices will help resolve the ability of civilians to sue the government over claims of improper actions of federal and military employees on the job.

Kim Lee Millbrook, a prisoner at the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa., sued the government after accusing prison guards at the Special Management Unit of sexually assaulting him in May 2010. Prison officials said Millbrook's claim was unsubstantiated.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld West Virginia's congressional redistricting plan against a challenge that small population variations among its three congressional districts violate the Constitution.

The justices, in an unsigned opinion, reversed a lower federal court ruling that struck down the plan because of the population differences.

The high court said the West Virginia plan easily passes muster and said the population variations are too small to trigger constitutional concerns about the principle of one person, one vote. In addition, the court said the plan adopted by the West Virginia legislature served other legitimate goals, including keeping counties intact and not pitting incumbents against each other.

"It is clear that West Virginia has carried its burden," the high court said.

The justices had previously blocked the ruling to allow the state to conduct elections under the map approved by state lawmakers.

The lower court still can consider challenges to the plan under the state Constitution.

Both the state House and Senate passed the map with bipartisan and nearly unanimous margins. The difference between the smallest and largest districts was about 4,900 people.

The Jefferson County Commission, encompassing Charles Town and Harpers Ferry, challenged the redrawing, which moved one county from one congressional district to another.

An appeals court on Tuesday reversed a lower court ruling that likely would have led to greater disclosure of who is paying for certain election ads.

In March, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the Federal Election Commission overstepped its bounds in allowing groups that fund certain election ads to keep their financiers anonymous.

But Tuesday's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sent the case back to Jackson, with instructions to refer the matter to the FEC for further consideration.

At issue are electioneering communications — ads that don't expressly advocate voting for or against a candidate running for federal office. In 2007, the FEC ruled that only contributors whose donations were "made for the purpose of furthering electioneering communications" had to be identified; those who gave unrestricted money did not have to be identified. The FEC regulation came in response to a Supreme Court ruling that gave more latitude to nonprofit groups — like the Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS and the President Barack Obama-leaning Priorities USA — on pre-election ads.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., sued the FEC over the regulation, which he called a "loophole" that made the disclosure requirements meaningless. He won a summary judgment from Jackson, who was appointed by Obama. The judge ruled that "Congress spoke plainly" in passing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law — and did not delegate authority to the FEC to narrow the disclosure requirement.

Wednesday's ruling by Braunschweig state court in northern Germany appears to strengthen Porsche's position, which still faces other court battles in connection with the 2008 takeover bid, German news agency dapd reported.

Two investors in the Braunschweig case had sought $6.1 million in damages claiming that Porsche published misleading information while it was secretly trying to take control of the much-larger Volkswagen.

Porsche's bid failed amid an unsustainable debt burden and the collapse of financial markets following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, eventually leading Volkswagen to take full control of Porsche.