2255 vs. 2254: Federal Prisoners and State Prisoners

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

What is the difference between § 2255 and § 2254?

Section 2255 is for people convicted in federal court; section 2254 is for people in custody under a state-court judgment. A §2255 motion goes to the federal judge who sentenced you. A §2254 petition goes to a federal district court, but only after you have exhausted state remedies, and it is reviewed under a deferential standard that has no §2255 equivalent.

Key takeaways on § 2255 versus § 2254

• The dividing line is which court entered the judgment, not where you are imprisoned. §2254(a) reaches “a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court”; §2255(a) reaches “[a] prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress.”
• Exhaustion applies only to §2254. A §2254 petition “shall not be granted unless it appears that . . . the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State.” §2254(b)(1)(A). A §2255 motion has no exhaustion requirement — there is no other court to exhaust.
• §2254(d) deference has no §2255 counterpart. If a state court decided your claim on the merits, a federal court may not grant relief unless the ruling was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law” or rested on “an unreasonable determination of the facts.” A federal judge reviewing a §2255 motion decides the constitutional question directly.
• The tolling rules are not the same. §2244(d)(2) stops the clock while a properly filed state collateral application is pending. Section 2255(f) has no statutory-tolling provision at all.
• The successive gates are separate statutes. State prisoners run through §2244(b); federal prisoners run through §2255(h). Bowe v. United States, 607 U.S. 13 (2026), confirms the separation — while leaving the §2255(h) gate exactly where it was.
• A certificate of appealability is required in both systems. §2253(c) applies to “the final order in a habeas corpus proceeding in which the detention complained of arises out of process issued by a State court” and to “the final order in a proceeding under section 2255.”

Which statute applies to me?

Look at the caption on your judgment. If it reads United States v. [your name], you were convicted in federal court and your collateral remedy is a §2255 motion. If it reads State of [X] v. [your name], People v., or Commonwealth v., you were convicted in state court and your federal remedy is a §2254 petition.

The statutes say the same thing in their own words. Section 2254(a) authorizes a federal court to “entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” Section 2255(a) applies to “[a] prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress” claiming the sentence “was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States,” that the court lacked jurisdiction, that the sentence exceeded the statutory maximum, or that it “is otherwise subject to collateral attack.”

Two things that do not determine which statute applies:

• Where you are physically held. A state prisoner housed in a private or out-of-state facility still challenges a state judgment under §2254. A federal prisoner in a contract facility still files under §2255 in the sentencing court.
• Which police agency investigated you. Federal task-force involvement in an investigation does not make a state prosecution federal. The prosecuting sovereign and the sentencing court are what matter.

One consequence surprises people: the same conduct can be prosecuted by both sovereigns, and the two judgments are separate for every purpose discussed on this page. That situation is addressed below.

Where does each one get filed?

A §2255 motion goes back to the judge who sentenced you. Section 2255(a) says the prisoner “may move the court which imposed the sentence.” Rule 3(b) of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings requires the clerk to enter the motion “on the criminal docket of the case in which the challenged judgment was entered,” and Rule 4(a) requires the clerk to forward it “to the judge who conducted the trial and imposed sentence.” It is not a new lawsuit; it is a further step in the criminal case — a point our what is a 2255 motion page develops in detail, and one that drives the mechanics on our how to file a 2255 motion page.

A §2254 petition goes to a federal district court with jurisdiction over your custodian. §2241(d) provides that where a state contains two or more federal judicial districts, the petition “may be filed in the district court for the district wherein such person is in custody or in the district court for the district within which the State court was held which convicted and sentenced him,” and “each of such district courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction to entertain the application.” In a single-district state the question does not arise.

That difference has a practical dimension. A federal movant’s judge already knows the case — the same judge who took the plea, tried the case, or imposed the sentence will read the §2255 motion. A §2254 petitioner draws a federal judge with no prior involvement, who will be reading a state-court record for the first time and reviewing it under a standard designed to make reversal difficult.

The pleading mechanics — forms, respondents, fees, verification — differ as well, and are set out on our petition for writ of habeas corpus page.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: The single most consequential thing a state prisoner can do early is retain state post-conviction counsel in the convicting state, not federal habeas counsel. Nearly everything that determines whether a federal §2254 petition has a chance — whether the claim was fairly presented, whether the state record contains the evidence, whether the claim was defaulted, whether the state filing was “properly filed” for tolling purposes — is decided in the state proceeding, before a federal judge ever sees the case. Federal habeas counsel inherits that record. It is very hard to fix later what was not built then.

Is exhaustion of state remedies required?

Yes, if you are filing under §2254 — and “exhausted” means more than “I appealed.”

Section 2254(b)(1) provides that a petition “shall not be granted unless it appears that . . . the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State,” or that “there is an absence of available State corrective process” or “circumstances exist that render such process ineffective to protect the rights of the applicant.”

Section 2254(c) then defines the requirement in a way that catches most pro se petitioners: an applicant “shall not be deemed to have exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State . . . if he has the right under the law of the State to raise, by any available procedure, the question presented.” If any state procedure remains open for that claim, the claim is unexhausted — even if you have already lost every other claim in state court.

Two further provisions matter:

• §2254(b)(2) permits a federal court to deny a petition “on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State.” That is a one-way street: a court can deny an unexhausted claim, not grant one.
• §2254(b)(3) provides that a State “shall not be deemed to have waived the exhaustion requirement or be estopped from reliance upon the requirement unless the State, through counsel, expressly waives the requirement.” Silence is not waiver.

A §2255 motion has no exhaustion requirement. There is no other court system whose remedies could be exhausted; the federal judgment came from the same judiciary that will hear the collateral attack. What a federal movant faces instead is procedural default — the rule that a claim not raised on direct appeal is generally barred absent cause and prejudice or actual innocence — which is a judge-made doctrine, not a statutory one, and which our procedural default page covers in detail. Which of the two forums a given claim belongs in is the subject of our 2255 vs direct appeal page.

The exhaustion trap: the clock does not stop for a federal filing

Here is the sequencing problem that ends more §2254 petitions than any substantive rule.

A petitioner files a federal petition to protect the deadline, the federal court dismisses it as unexhausted, the petitioner returns to state court — and the year has run out in the meantime. Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167 (2001), is why: the Court held that “an application for federal habeas corpus review is not an ‘application for State post-conviction or other collateral review’ within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. §2244(d)(2),” and therefore “§2244(d)(2) . . . did not toll the limitation period during the pendency of respondent’s first federal habeas petition.” (opinion)

The Supreme Court later identified the workaround. In Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408 (2005), the Court noted that “[a] prisoner seeking state postconviction relief might avoid this predicament . . . by filing a ‘protective’ petition in federal court and asking the federal court to stay and abey the federal habeas proceedings until state remedies are exhausted,” and that “[a] petitioner’s reasonable confusion about whether a state filing would be timely will ordinarily constitute ‘good cause’ for him to file in federal court.” (opinion)

A protective petition plus a stay motion is a real tool, and it is one that unrepresented petitioners almost never use because nothing tells them it exists.

How deferential is the §2254(d) standard?

Section 2254(d) is the provision that makes federal habeas review of a state conviction structurally different from anything in §2255, and it is the reason most §2254 petitions fail even when the underlying claim is real.

The text: a petition “shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim — (1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”

Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86 (2011), states the operative test in the sentence federal courts quote constantly: “A state court’s determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as ‘fairminded jurists could disagree’ on the correctness of the state court’s decision.” (opinion) The Court restated the burden even more starkly: a state prisoner “must show that the state court’s ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement.”

Three features of §2254(d) deserve emphasis because they surprise people who assume federal review means fresh review.

“Clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court” means the Supreme Court and no one else. A circuit decision squarely in a petitioner’s favor is not “clearly established Federal law” for §2254(d)(1) purposes. That is a narrower universe of authority than a §2255 movant may draw on.

A summary denial still gets deference. Richter held that “§2254(d) does not require a state court to give reasons before its decision can be deemed to have been ‘adjudicated on the merits,'” and that when a claim was presented and relief denied, “it may be presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary.” A one-line state order denying relief is entitled to the same deference as a reasoned opinion, and the federal court must ask “what arguments or theories . . . could have supported[] the state court’s decision” before deciding whether fairminded jurists could disagree.

Facts get their own presumption. §2254(e)(1) provides that “a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct,” and that “[t]he applicant shall have the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence.”

There is no §2255 analogue to any of this. A federal judge deciding a §2255 motion asks whether the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States — not whether some earlier court’s answer to that question was unreasonable. A §2255 movant with a strong Strickland claim needs to persuade the judge that counsel’s performance was deficient and prejudicial. A §2254 petitioner with the identical claim needs to persuade the judge that no fairminded jurist could have concluded otherwise. That is a different case.

Do the two one-year deadlines work the same way?

Both systems impose a one-year limitation period, both run from the latest of four triggers, and the triggers are worded almost identically. The differences are in the details, and one of them is decisive.

The state-prisoner clock is in §2244(d)(1): “A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court,” running from the latest of (A) finality of the judgment “by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review”; (B) removal of a “State”-created impediment; (C) the date the Supreme Court initially recognized a new constitutional right made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review; or (D) the date “the factual predicate of the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.”

The federal-prisoner clock is in §2255(f), running from the latest of (1) the date the judgment of conviction becomes final; (2) removal of a “governmental action” impediment; (3) the date the Supreme Court initially recognized a newly retroactive right; or (4) the date “the facts supporting the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.”

Two textual differences are worth noticing. Section 2244(d)(1)(B) refers to an impediment “created by State action,” while §2255(f)(2) refers to one “created by governmental action” — for a federal movant, that means action by the federal government, most often the Bureau of Prisons or the prosecution. And §2244(d)(1)(C) is limited to a newly recognized constitutional right, while §2255(f)(3) says “the right asserted,” without the constitutional modifier.

The decisive difference is statutory tolling, and it runs only one way.

Statutory tolling: a state-prisoner provision with no federal twin

Yes, state post-conviction review stops the federal clock — under §2244(d)(2), and only for a state prisoner. The provision reads: “The time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending shall not be counted toward any period of limitation under this subsection.”

Section 2255(f) contains no comparable provision. Read the subsection: it sets four trigger dates and stops. There is no clause suspending the federal-prisoner clock during any other proceeding. A pending motion for a sentence reduction, a pending administrative remedy, a pending motion for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A) — none of them stops the §2255(f) year. That single asymmetry is the most consequential deadline difference between the two statutes, and it is one that guidance written for state prisoners regularly imports into federal advice, wrongly.

Two limits on §2244(d)(2) matter even for the state prisoners who get it:

• “Properly filed” is a real filter. Pace v. DiGuglielmo held that “time limits, no matter their form, are ‘filing’ conditions,” so “[w]hen a postconviction petition is untimely under state law, ‘that [is] the end of the matter’ for purposes of §2244(d)(2).” A state petition rejected as untimely tolls nothing, retroactively.
• A federal filing does not toll. Duncan v. Walker, discussed above.

What is available in both systems is the judge-made doctrine of equitable tolling, which requires diligence plus an extraordinary circumstance and is granted rarely — see equitable tolling. For computing a federal deadline from the actual events in a federal case, see 2255 statute of limitations. The broader architecture AEDPA imposed in 1996 — the limitation periods, the successive gates, the COA requirement — is the subject of our AEDPA page.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The most common wrong assumption we hear from families is that filing something stops the clock. It does not, in either system, with one narrow statutory exception that belongs to state prisoners alone. When someone calls and says a motion has been pending for eight months, the first thing we do is ask what statute it was filed under and in which court — because if it was a federal filing, or a state filing the state court rejected as untimely, those eight months were counted against the deadline the whole time.

Procedural default, and the Martinez–Trevino exception

Both systems bar claims that were not properly presented earlier, and both allow the bar to be excused for cause and prejudice or a fundamental miscarriage of justice. But the state side has a doctrine with no federal analogue, and state prisoners who do not know about it lose otherwise viable claims.

Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722 (1991), set the baseline. The Court made it explicit: “In all cases in which a state prisoner has defaulted his federal claims in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule, federal habeas review of the claims is barred unless the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or demonstrate that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” (opinion) And because “[t]here is no constitutional right to an attorney in state post-conviction proceedings,” a petitioner “cannot claim constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel in such proceedings” — so post-conviction counsel’s error is charged to the petitioner.

That rule produced a structural unfairness. In states that require ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claims to be raised for the first time in collateral proceedings, a petitioner whose collateral lawyer omitted the claim had no forum at all.

Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), fixed it, narrowly. The Court “qualifie[d] Coleman by recognizing a narrow exception: Inadequate assistance of counsel at initial-review collateral proceedings may establish cause for a prisoner’s procedural default of a claim of ineffective assistance at trial.” (opinion) Cause exists in two situations — “where the state courts did not appoint counsel in the initial-review collateral proceeding,” or “where appointed counsel in the initial-review collateral proceeding, where the claim should have been raised, was ineffective under the standards of Strickland v. Washington.” The petitioner “must also demonstrate that the underlying ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim is a substantial one, which is to say that the prisoner must demonstrate that the claim has some merit.”

Martinez is expressly equitable rather than constitutional, which is why it does not create a right to counsel in collateral proceedings. And its limits are real: it does not extend to attorney errors in appeals from collateral proceedings, in successive collateral proceedings, or in petitions for discretionary review.

Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413 (2013), extended it one step. The Court held that “[w]here . . . a State’s procedural framework, by reason of its design and operation, makes it highly unlikely in a typical case that a defendant will have a meaningful opportunity to raise an ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim on direct appeal, the exception recognized in Martinez applies.” (opinion) The reasoning was that a distinction “between (1) a State that denies permission to raise the claim on direct appeal and (2) a State that in theory grants permission but, as a matter of procedural design and systemic operation, denies a meaningful opportunity to do so is a distinction without a difference.”

There is no Martinez problem in the federal system, because there is no Martinez trap. Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500 (2003), holds that “an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim may be brought in a collateral proceeding under §2255, whether or not the petitioner could have raised the claim on direct appeal.” A federal movant’s IAC claim is not defaulted by failing to raise it on direct appeal; the §2255 motion is the designed forum for it. The Sixth Amendment claims themselves look the same in both systems — including claims that counsel labored under a disqualifying conflict of interest — but the procedural path to a federal ruling on them is entirely different.

The successive gates are two different statutes

If this is not your first collateral attack, you run through a gate — and which gate depends on which sovereign convicted you.

State prisoners: §2244(b). Section 2244(b)(3)(A) requires that “[b]efore a second or successive application permitted by this section is filed in the district court, the applicant shall move in the appropriate court of appeals for an order authorizing the district court to consider the application.” A three-judge panel decides; authorization issues only on “a prima facie showing that the application satisfies the requirements of this subsection”; the court must rule “not later than 30 days after the filing of the motion”; and under §2244(b)(3)(E) the “grant or denial of an authorization . . . shall not be appealable and shall not be the subject of a petition for rehearing or for a writ of certiorari.” Section 2244(b)(1) adds an old-claim bar for state prisoners: a claim “presented in a prior application shall be dismissed.”

Federal prisoners: §2255(h). A second or successive motion “must be certified as provided in section 2244 by a panel of the appropriate court of appeals to contain” either “(1) newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense; or (2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.”

Bowe v. United States, 607 U.S. 13 (2026), decided January 9, 2026, sits precisely on this page’s dividing line, and it needs to be read for exactly what it says. The Court held that §2255(h)’s cross-reference “incorporates the procedures in §2244 only as they relate to how a panel certifies a second or successive filing.” From that: §2244(b)(3)(E)’s certiorari bar “does not apply to federal prisoners,” so the Supreme Court may review a court of appeals’ denial of authorization; and §2244(b)(1)’s old-claim bar, which by its terms governs “a second or successive habeas corpus application under section 2254,” “applies only to state prisoners.”

What Bowe did not do. It did not remove the second-or-successive restrictions, and it did not lift the §2255(h) gate. The Court reaffirmed that §2255(h) states the “two—and only two—conditions in which a second or successive §2255 motion may proceed,” quoting Jones v. Hendrix, 599 U.S. 465, 477 (2023). A federal prisoner still needs a three-judge panel’s authorization, still needs newly discovered evidence meeting the clear-and-convincing standard or a new retroactive rule of constitutional law, and still cannot get a second motion heard without it. Prisoners are already advancing the broader reading, and courts are rejecting it. The gate itself is covered on our second or successive 2255 page.

Appealing a denial: the COA applies to both

Neither a §2254 petitioner nor a §2255 movant has an appeal as of right. 28 U.S.C. §2253(c)(1) requires a certificate of appealability for an appeal from “the final order in a habeas corpus proceeding in which the detention complained of arises out of process issued by a State court” and from “the final order in a proceeding under section 2255.”

The standard is identical in both: “A certificate of appealability may issue under paragraph (1) only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” §2253(c)(2). Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473 (2000), translates it: “The petitioner must demonstrate that reasonable jurists would find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong.” (opinion) How to obtain one, and what changes when the denial rested on a procedural ground rather than the merits, is covered on our certificate of appealability page.

There is one asymmetry worth flagging even here. Because §2254(d) requires a federal court to defer to a reasonable state-court ruling, a §2254 petitioner seeking a COA is effectively asking whether reasonable jurists could debate whether the state court’s decision was unreasonable — a doubled layer of deference that has no analogue on the §2255 side.

Section 2255 vs. section 2254 side by side

Table: Federal prisoners (§2255) and state prisoners (§2254), compared

	§2255 — federal conviction	§2254 — state conviction
Who files	“[A] prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress” — §2255(a)	“[A] person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court” — §2254(a)
Document	A motion, filed in the existing criminal case	A petition, opening a new civil action
Where	The court that imposed the sentence — §2255(a); entered on the criminal docket, Rule 3(b)	District of custody or, in a multi-district state, district of conviction — §2241(d)
Which judge	The judge who tried the case and imposed sentence — Rule 4(a)	A federal judge with no prior involvement in the case
Exhaustion required	No. No other court system to exhaust	Yes. §2254(b)(1)(A), (c) — any remaining state procedure means the claim is unexhausted
Standard of review	The federal court decides the constitutional question directly	§2254(d) deference — relief only if the state ruling was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law” or rested on “an unreasonable determination of the facts”
Deference to fact findings	None comparable	State fact findings “presumed to be correct,” rebuttable only “by clear and convincing evidence” — §2254(e)(1)
Source of “clearly established” law	Not applicable; ordinary federal law applies	Supreme Court holdings only — §2254(d)(1)
One-year clock	§2255(f) — four triggers, latest controls	§2244(d)(1) — four triggers, latest controls
Statutory tolling	None. §2255(f) has no tolling provision	§2244(d)(2) — clock stops while a “properly filed” state collateral application is pending
Effect of a federal filing on the clock	No tolling	No tolling — Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167 (2001)
Default doctrine	Judge-made procedural default; IAC claims exempt — Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500 (2003)	Independent-and-adequate-state-ground bar — Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722 (1991)
Special cause exception	Not applicable	Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012); Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413 (2013)
Successive gate	§2255(h) — panel certification; newly discovered evidence (clear and convincing) or a new retroactive rule of constitutional law	§2244(b) — panel authorization; plus the §2244(b)(1) old-claim bar
Certiorari from a denial of authorization	Available — Bowe v. United States, 607 U.S. 13 (2026)	Barred — §2244(b)(3)(E)
Appeal from denial	COA required — §2253(c)(1)(B)	COA required — §2253(c)(1)(A)
Official form	AO Form 243	AO Form 241
Filing fee	None — Rule 3 advisory note, §2255 Rules	$5 — §1914(a)

What happens when there is both a state and a federal conviction?

Then you have two separate matters, two separate clocks, and two separate filings. Nothing about one carries over to the other.

This is more common than people expect. The same course of conduct — a firearm, a drug transaction, a fraud — can be charged by both a state and the United States, and the dual-sovereignty doctrine permits it. When it happens:

• Each judgment gets its own collateral attack. A §2255 motion in the federal sentencing court for the federal judgment; a §2254 petition, after state exhaustion, for the state judgment.
• Each has its own limitation period, running from its own finality date. Those dates are usually months or years apart. Attacking one does not toll the other.
• A pending attack on one judgment does not stop the clock on the other. Section 2255(f) has no tolling provision at all, and §2244(d)(2) tolls only for a “properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim.”
• The relief is different. Vacating the state judgment does not disturb the federal sentence, though it may affect a criminal-history calculation and open a separate avenue in the federal case — potentially as newly discovered evidence or under a later §2255(f) trigger. Vacating the federal judgment does nothing to the state sentence.
• Custody under one can support a challenge to the other in narrow circumstances. Rule 1(b) of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings reaches “a person in custody under a judgment of a state court or another federal court, and subject to future custody under a judgment of the district court” — so a person serving a state sentence may attack a federal judgment that will take effect later.

If you are in this position, sequence matters and it is worth getting advice on both matters before filing either.

What a state prisoner should actually do first

Because this page exists partly to route people honestly, here is the sequence, plainly:

1. Finish state direct appeal, including discretionary review in the state’s highest court where available. Section 2244(d)(1)(A) does not start until direct review concludes or the time for seeking it expires.
2. File state post-conviction relief on time and completely. This is where the record gets built and where the Martinez problem is either created or avoided. Get counsel who practices post-conviction in that state.
3. Watch the federal year. It runs from finality and is tolled only while a “properly filed” state application is pending. A state filing rejected as untimely tolls nothing.
4. If the federal deadline is closing while state proceedings continue, consider a protective federal petition with a motion to stay and abey, per Pace.
5. Then file the §2254 petition, presenting only exhausted claims, with the §2254(d) problem addressed head-on for each claim.

Our firm does not take state post-conviction matters. A state public defender’s office, a state innocence project, or a private post-conviction attorney admitted in the convicting state is the right call, and making it early matters more than almost anything that happens later in federal court. For federal matters, our post conviction attorney and post conviction relief pages explain who does this work and what it can change.

Why work with Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.

If your conviction is federal, this is the work the firm does.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best founded the firm in 2019 and practices federal criminal appeals and post-conviction relief nationwide. She is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit — has been admitted pro hac vice in federal courts from Montana to Florida, and has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record. She is a 2026 Best Lawyers in America honoree for Appellate Practice, Chambers USA 2026 ranked for white-collar litigation, was named South Carolina Public Defender of the Year in 2010, and is the author of Reversing Your Criminal Conviction: Develop Your Winning Strategy (2023). Before founding the firm she spent seven years handling capital post-conviction and appellate work — experience that is directly relevant to how a collateral record gets built.

Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, is the firm’s Managing Director and a nationally recognized federal prison expert, author of the Federal Prison Handbook and four other books on the federal system, and Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Defense Center. He earned his J.D. at UC Davis School of Law after serving roughly a decade in the federal Bureau of Prisons.

The firm runs an intentionally small caseload from offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and represents clients in federal district and circuit courts nationwide. Federal plea agreements now routinely contain collateral-attack waivers, which is one more thing that distinguishes federal post-conviction practice from state — whether such a waiver is enforceable and what survives it is covered on our appeal waiver page. What representation on a §2255 motion actually involves is set out on our federal 2255 motion lawyer page.

Find out which statute governs your case

If you are not certain whether your conviction is federal or state, or whether both are in play, that question is answerable in one conversation from the judgment and the docket sheet.

Schedule a consultation or call (843) 620-1100. If the matter turns out to be a state case, we will say so and point you toward the right kind of counsel rather than take it.

Related reading: do I file under §2255 or §2241 · what AEDPA changed in 1996 · what a §2255 motion is · what deadlines run after a conviction

Frequently Asked Questions About § 2255 vs. § 2254

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026