"Shortly after they filed their appeal in the Fifth Circuit, they learned that they did indeed have a right to appeal directly to the Supreme Court. Although people often speak of “appealing” a case to the Supreme Court, actually only a few special classes of cases come to the Supreme Court via appeal. Most come via a writ of certiorari. (Apart from their different names, though, requests for certiorari and appeals go through essentially the same process to reach the Court.) At that time, cases in which a three-judge court had been asked for and had not granted an injunction were entitled to direct appeal. Coffee and Weddington had never given any thought to laying out their case in such a way as to enhance their chances of taking it to the Supreme Court, but it now seemed that what they had initially viewed as a setback-the court’s refusal to grant injunctive relief-would prove to be a decided advantage."