Post-Conviction Relief: What It Is and What Options You Have

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

What is post-conviction relief?

Post-conviction relief is a challenge to a criminal judgment brought after the direct appeal is over. In federal court the main vehicle is a motion under 28 U.S.C. §2255. Under §2255(b), a court granting relief may discharge the prisoner, resentence him, grant a new trial, or correct the sentence — whichever “appear[s] appropriate.”

Key takeaways on post-conviction relief options

• Federal and state post-conviction relief are different systems. A federal prisoner files a §2255 motion in the district that sentenced him. A state prisoner uses that state’s post-conviction procedure first, then may file under 28 U.S.C. §2254. Advice written for one is not advice for the other.
• 28 U.S.C. §2255(b) names exactly four remedies. A court that grants relief “shall vacate and set the judgment aside and shall discharge the prisoner or resentence him or grant a new trial or correct the sentence as may appear appropriate.”
• Most claims must be constitutional, or fundamental. Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 428 (1962), holds that a non-jurisdictional, non-constitutional error is not cognizable unless it is “a fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice.”
• Post-conviction relief does not reweigh the evidence. It attacks the legality of the judgment. Disagreement with the verdict, the guideline range, or the length of the sentence is not by itself a §2255 claim.
• The clock is one year, and it starts from the latest of four events. 28 U.S.C. §2255(f) sets a one-year limitation period running from the latest of four trigger dates — computed at 2255 statute of limitations.
• A §3582(c) compassionate-release motion is not a substitute. Fernandez v. United States, 608 U.S. 411, 146 S. Ct. 1292 (2026), holds that a prisoner attacking the validity of his conviction “must proceed through 28 U. S. C. §2255, not 18 U. S. C. §3582.”

What is post-conviction relief?

Post-conviction relief is the set of procedures for attacking a criminal judgment after the ordinary appeal is finished. It is sometimes called collateral review, because it comes at the judgment from the side rather than straight up the appellate ladder. The name describes the timing and the posture, not any single motion.

In the federal system, the central vehicle is a motion under 28 U.S.C. §2255(a). The statute’s operative sentence reads:

“A prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack, may move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.”

Four things in that sentence define the whole remedy. The movant must be in custody. The motion goes to the court which imposed the sentence — not a higher court, and not the district where the prisoner happens to be held. It attacks the judgment, meaning the conviction, the sentence, or both. And it rests on one of four listed grounds. The full subsection-by-subsection walk through the statute is at what is a 2255 motion; this page is about what the relief is and what it can change.

Section 2255 is not the only federal post-conviction vehicle, and choosing the wrong one wastes the deadline on the right one. A federal prisoner may, depending on the claim, be looking at a motion for a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33, a sentence correction under Rule 35(a), a challenge to the execution of a sentence under 28 U.S.C. §2241, a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. §3582(c), or — if the sentence has fully expired — a writ of coram nobis. Each is a different question with a different answer, which is why each has its own page.

Post-conviction relief is also a term of art in most state systems, where it usually names a specific statutory motion filed in the trial court. That usage is why so much of what you will read about “PCR” describes procedures that do not exist in federal court at all.

Is post-conviction relief the same in federal and state court?

No, and the difference is structural rather than cosmetic. This is the first question to settle, because everything downstream — which court, which motion, which deadline, which standard — depends on the answer.

If you were convicted in a United States District Court, the judgment is federal. Your post-conviction vehicle is a §2255 motion, filed on the criminal docket of the case in the district that sentenced you, under the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings. There is no filing fee. The deadline is the one-year period in §2255(f).

If you were convicted in a state court, the judgment is a state judgment, and a federal district court has no power to correct it directly. The route runs through that state’s own post-conviction procedure — which may be called a post-conviction relief act petition, a motion for post-conviction relief, a state habeas petition, or a coram nobis petition depending on the state — and only afterward, once state remedies are exhausted, into federal court by a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. §2254. The standards there are different again: a federal court reviewing a state conviction owes the state court’s merits ruling the deference AEDPA requires.

Two consequences follow that are worth stating flatly. First, a state prisoner cannot file a §2255 motion, and a federal prisoner cannot file a §2254 petition; each statute names its own class. Second, an article explaining “post-conviction relief in Indiana” or “in Wisconsin” is describing a body of law that does not govern a federal case, however well written it is. If you are a family member trying to help and you are not sure which system you are in, look at the caption of the judgment: it will say either United States of America v. your relative’s name, or State of [X] v. that name.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The single most common thing families get wrong on the first call is which system they are in. Someone reads a page about a state post-conviction petition with a three-year deadline, relaxes, and comes back eighteen months later on a federal judgment with a one-year clock that closed. The judgment document answers the question in one line. We ask for it before anything else, along with the docket sheet, because the calendar consequences of guessing are permanent. The legal strategy that follows is Elizabeth’s and the firm’s attorneys’ to build; getting the file in front of them in time is what this step is for.

What is the difference between a direct appeal and post-conviction relief?

A direct appeal reviews the record; post-conviction relief attacks the judgment with evidence from outside the record. That is the practical difference, and it drives everything else.

On direct appeal, a court of appeals reads the transcript and the exhibits from the trial court and asks whether the district judge made a reversible error on that record. New facts are generally not admissible. On collateral review, the district court can take evidence that never existed in the trial record — an affidavit from a witness nobody called, an expert report nobody obtained, testimony from the trial lawyer about what he did and why. That is exactly why ineffective-assistance claims belong here: 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.”

The trade for that flexibility is a much higher bar. United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152 (1982), holds that the “plain error” standard used on direct appeal “is out of place when a prisoner launches a collateral attack against a criminal conviction after society’s legitimate interest in the finality of the judgment has been perfected,” and reaffirms “the well-settled principle that to obtain collateral relief a prisoner must clear a significantly higher hurdle than would exist on direct appeal.” A claim that could have been raised on direct appeal and was not is generally defaulted, and getting it heard anyway requires cause and actual prejudice — the doctrine covered at procedural default.

Which claims belong in which proceeding, and what happens if you pick wrong, is the definitive subject of 2255 vs direct appeal. The short version for orientation: record-based legal error goes up on appeal; claims that need evidence outside the record — ineffective assistance, suppressed evidence, an involuntary plea — go into a §2255 motion.

What can post-conviction relief actually change?

The statute answers this question directly. 28 U.S.C. §2255(b) tells the court what to do if it finds a defect:

“If the court finds that the judgment was rendered without jurisdiction, or that the sentence imposed was not authorized by law or otherwise open to collateral attack, or that there has been such a denial or infringement of the constitutional rights of the prisoner as to render the judgment vulnerable to collateral attack, the court shall vacate and set the judgment aside and shall discharge the prisoner or resentence him or grant a new trial or correct the sentence as may appear appropriate.”

Four remedies, and the court picks the one that fits the defect. Note the sequence the statute builds in: the judgment is vacated first, and then one of the four dispositions follows. Note also what is not in the list — money, an expungement, a finding of innocence, or an apology. Section 2255 undoes or repairs a judgment; it does not issue declarations about it.

Table 1. The four remedies under 28 U.S.C. §2255(b) — what the statute authorizes and what each one means in practice.

Remedy in §2255(b)	Statutory language	What it means in practice	The kind of defect that produces it
Discharge the prisoner	the court “shall vacate and set the judgment aside and shall discharge the prisoner”	The conviction is vacated and the movant is released from custody on that judgment. Whether the government may retry depends on the defect; where the defect means the conduct was never a crime, there is nothing left to retry.	The court lacked jurisdiction; the conduct charged is not a federal offense; the movant stands “convicted and punish[ed] … for an act that the law does not make criminal” — Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 346 (1974).
Resentence him	“or resentence him”	The conviction stands; the sentence is vacated and the case returns to the district judge for a new sentencing proceeding, ordinarily with the movant present and with current law applied.	A sentence above the statutory maximum; a guideline calculation that ineffective assistance let stand; a predicate offense that no longer qualifies.
Grant a new trial	“or grant a new trial”	The conviction and sentence are vacated and the case returns to the trial docket. The government may retry; the movant returns to pretrial status, with the presumption of innocence restored.	Constitutional error infecting the guilt phase — suppressed exculpatory evidence, ineffective assistance at trial, an involuntary or unknowing plea.
Correct the sentence	“or correct the sentence as may appear appropriate”	A targeted fix to the judgment without a full resentencing — striking an unlawful term, correcting a count, conforming the written judgment to what the court imposed.	A discrete, identifiable defect in the sentence that does not require the whole package to be reopened.
(The gateway condition)	“Unless the motion and the files and records of the case conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief, the court shall … grant a prompt hearing thereon”	Before any of the four, §2255(b) directs a hearing unless the existing record conclusively forecloses relief — a lower threshold for the movant than proving the claim outright.	Any claim turning on facts outside the record. Whether a hearing is held is covered at 2255 evidentiary hearing.

Source: 28 U.S.C. §2255(b) (Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 967, as amended). Quoted language is the current statutory text; emphasis added.

Two practical points about that table. First, resentencing is the most common form of relief actually granted, because sentencing errors are the easiest defects to isolate and the least disruptive to correct — a full new trial years after the fact is a far larger ask. Second, a resentencing is a real proceeding, not a paperwork adjustment: the court applies the law in effect at the time of resentencing, which occasionally helps and occasionally does not.

Which claims qualify for post-conviction relief?

Section 2255(a) lists four grounds, and in practice they sort into two tiers.

Constitutional claims go through the first ground — a sentence “imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.” This is where nearly all successful §2255 traffic sits: ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, measured by the two-prong test in Strickland v. Washington; suppression of favorable evidence under Brady v. Maryland; a guilty plea that was not knowing and voluntary; prosecutorial misconduct that rendered the trial fundamentally unfair.

Non-constitutional legal claims are cognizable, but only if they are fundamental. Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333 (1974), rejected the Government’s argument that only claims “of constitutional dimension” qualify, holding that “the text of the statute cannot sustain” that position because §2255(a) expressly reaches violations of the “laws of the United States.” But the threshold is high, and it comes from Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424 (1962). Hill’s sentencing judge never invited him to speak, a plain violation of the allocution rule. The Court denied §2255 relief, holding the error “is neither jurisdictional nor constitutional,” and “not a fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice, nor an omission inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of fair procedure.” A rule violation, standing alone, is not enough.

Davis shows what does clear that bar. Where an intervening decision establishes that the movant “could not be lawfully convicted” because his conduct was not criminal, the Court said “[t]here can be no room for doubt that such a circumstance ‘inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice.'”

Jurisdictional claims and above-the-maximum sentences are the remaining two grounds, and both are narrow: a genuine absence of jurisdiction, not a disagreement about how the court exercised jurisdiction it plainly had, and a sentence that actually exceeds the statutory ceiling for the offense of conviction.

What specific claims have succeeded — and which fail no matter how they are pleaded — is cataloged at grounds for a 2255 motion and claims not cognizable under 2255.

What post-conviction relief cannot do

The clearest statement of the outer boundary is United States v. Addonizio, 442 U.S. 178 (1979). Addonizio argued that the Parole Commission’s post-sentencing change in policy had frustrated the sentencing judge’s expectations about when he would actually be released. The Court held that “subsequent actions taken by the Parole Commission — whether or not such actions accord with a trial judge’s expectations at the time of sentencing — do not retroactively affect the validity of the final judgment itself,” and therefore “do not provide a basis for a collateral attack.” Section 2255 reaches defects in the judgment, not what happens to the sentence afterward.

That single holding disposes of a large share of what people arrive wanting. Post-conviction relief under §2255 generally cannot:

• Change how the Bureau of Prisons administers the sentence. Sentence computation, jail-credit disputes, First Step Act earned time credits, disciplinary sanctions, and halfway-house placement are execution-of-sentence questions. They travel under 28 U.S.C. §2241, in the district of confinement, after the administrative remedy process — not under §2255 in the sentencing court.
• Reduce a lawful sentence because circumstances have changed. Illness, family hardship, rehabilitation, and a sentence that now looks too long are grounds for a compassionate-release motion under 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A), not for a §2255 motion.
• Relitigate the sufficiency of the evidence. A jury’s verdict is not reopened on collateral review because the movant disagrees with it.
• Reach someone no longer in custody. Custody is a jurisdictional prerequisite. When the sentence, including supervised release, has fully expired, §2255 is closed and the remaining vehicle is coram nobis.
• Correct an ordinary sentencing error long after the fact through Rule 35. Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(a) is narrow and fast: “Within 14 days after sentencing, the court may correct a sentence that resulted from arithmetical, technical, or other clear error.” Hill, construing the pre-1987 version of the rule, which allowed the court to “correct an illegal sentence at any time,” confirms that Rule 35 is not a vehicle “to re-examine errors occurring at the trial or other proceedings prior to the imposition of sentence.”
• Serve as a late motion for a new trial. Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(a) lets a court “vacate any judgment and grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires,” but under Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(b)(1) a motion “grounded on newly discovered evidence must be filed within 3 years after the verdict or finding of guilty,” and Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(b)(2) gives 14 days for any other ground. New evidence discovered in year four is a §2255 question, not a Rule 33 question — the routing problem worked out at newly discovered evidence in federal court.

The complete inventory of which clock is running on which vehicle is maintained at federal appeal deadline.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: A large share of what comes to us as “post-conviction relief” is really three different problems wearing one name: a legal defect in the judgment, a Bureau of Prisons administration problem, and a request for mercy on a lawful sentence. They go to different decision-makers under different statutes with different deadlines, and filing the wrong one does not preserve the right one. The first work product in any of our post-conviction matters is a sorting memo that says which of the three we are actually looking at, and what the calendar looks like on each.

Why do courts start from a presumption against relief?

Because the judgment is final, and finality is a value the Supreme Court has told lower courts to weigh. Frady puts it directly: “Once the defendant’s chance to appeal has been waived or exhausted … we are entitled to presume he stands fairly and finally convicted, especially when, as here, he already has had a fair opportunity to present his federal claims to a federal forum.” Addonizio adds the institutional reasoning: “Inroads on the concept of finality tend to undermine confidence in the integrity of our procedures,” and “increased volume of judicial work associated with the processing of collateral attacks inevitably impairs and delays the orderly administration of justice.”

This is not judicial mood. It is the design principle behind every restriction a §2255 movant encounters: the one-year clock in §2255(f), the default rule requiring cause and prejudice, the “conclusively show” language in §2255(b) that lets a court resolve some motions on the papers, and the certification gate in §2255(h). Congress tightened all of this in 1996 with AEDPA, the subject of our AEDPA page.

It also explains why the movant carries every burden. There is no presumption that an error occurred, no burden on the government to show the judgment was sound, and no benefit of the doubt. A motion has to arrive with its own proof.

How long do you have to file?

One year, running from the latest of four dates. 28 U.S.C. §2255(f) provides that “[a] 1-year period of limitation shall apply to a motion under this section,” running from the latest of: the date the judgment of conviction becomes final; the date a government-created impediment is removed; the date the Supreme Court initially recognized a newly recognized right made retroactive on collateral review; or the date the supporting facts could have been discovered through due diligence.

Three points that catch people, each of which is worked through in full at 2255 statute of limitations:

• “Final” is not the sentencing date for anyone who appealed. Clay v. United States, 537 U.S. 522 (2003), holds that “a judgment of conviction becomes final when the time expires for filing a petition for certiorari contesting the appellate court’s affirmation of the conviction.”
• Different claims in the same motion can run from different dates, because (f)(4) is keyed to when each claim’s facts were discoverable.
• A pending compassionate-release motion does not stop the clock. Nothing in §2255(f) makes any trigger date turn on a §3582(c) filing.

If the year has already run, the remaining arguments are equitable tolling and the actual-innocence gateway, at equitable tolling and actual innocence.

How often is post-conviction relief granted, and how long does it take?

Honest answer: relief is uncommon, and the process is measured in months to years rather than weeks. The more precise answer requires being careful about what the public data actually measures.

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts publishes filing counts for motions to vacate sentence in its Judicial Business series. Those figures show, for example, 24,837 such motions filed in FY2016 — a roughly 350% spike the AO attributed to Welch v. United States making Johnson retroactive — followed by 7,205 in FY2017 as the surge unwound, and 3,763 in FY2023. From FY2024 forward the AO no longer separately itemizes motions to vacate sentence in its district-courts narrative, reporting habeas corpus and prisoner petitions instead; later figures have to come from Table C-2 directly.

Those are filings, not grants. The AO does not publish a clean “granted” field, and no number above is a success rate or should be read as one. What the FY2016 spike does show, unusually clearly, is how much a single retroactivity decision moves the entire national docket — which is why retroactive supreme court decisions is a page of its own.

Grant rates and realistic timing are maintained at 2255 motion success rate. The stage-by-stage sequence after a motion is filed — screening under Rule 4, the government’s response, any hearing, the ruling — is at what happens after filing a 2255.

Does a compassionate-release motion count as post-conviction relief?

No, and after 2026 that answer is settled at the Supreme Court. A motion under 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A) asks a court to reduce a lawful sentence for extraordinary and compelling reasons. Post-conviction relief asks a court to hold that the judgment is unlawful. They are different requests, and they do not substitute for one another.

Fernandez v. United States, 608 U.S. 411, 146 S. Ct. 1292 (2026), holds that “[a] prisoner who collaterally attacks the validity of his conviction must proceed through 28 U. S. C. §2255, not 18 U. S. C. §3582.” A movant cannot repackage a claim that the conviction is invalid as an extraordinary-and-compelling reason for a sentence reduction.

The practical consequence is a deadline problem, and it is the most expensive mistake in this area. Filing a compassionate-release motion does not toll the §2255(f) one-year period — none of the four trigger dates in §2255(f) turns on a §3582 filing. A prisoner who spends a year litigating a §3582 motion that raises conviction-validity arguments can emerge having lost the §2255 window entirely. What to do after that has already happened is the subject of 2255 after compassionate release denial.

Fernandez did leave one door open, and it is worth stating precisely because it is frequently overstated in both directions. The Court expressly reserved whether a freestanding actual-innocence claim is available under §2255, writing that “[w]e have never ruled that possibility out and do not do so now.” It held only that a compassionate-release motion is not the vehicle for such a claim.

Can you file more than once?

Usually not, and the second motion is far harder than the first. 28 U.S.C. §2255(h) provides that “[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 newly discovered evidence that would establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty, or “a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.”

Two conditions, and only two. A court of appeals panel must authorize the filing before the district court has power to consider it, and the great majority of authorization requests are denied.

One 2026 decision is being widely misread here, so read it carefully. Bowe v. United States, 607 U.S. 13 (2026), held that §2244(b)(1)’s old-claim bar and §2244(b)(3)(E)’s certiorari bar apply to state prisoners only, because §2255(h)’s cross-reference “incorporates the procedures in §2244 only as they relate to how a panel certifies a second or successive filing.” The practical effect is that the Supreme Court may now review a court of appeals’ denial of authorization to a federal prisoner. What Bowe did not do is loosen §2255(h). The Court restated the gate as 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). Anyone telling you Bowe opened the door to successive motions is wrong. The full treatment is at second or successive 2255.

This is also why the first motion has to be complete. Every claim you know about belongs in it. A claim held back is, for practical purposes, a claim given up.

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

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, running a national federal practice on an intentionally small caseload. Elizabeth Franklin-Best has more than 20 years of federal and appellate criminal defense experience, has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, and has sixteen published decisions as counsel of record. 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 — and has been admitted pro hac vice in federal courts from Montana to Florida. She is recognized by Best Lawyers in America 2026 for Appellate Practice, ranked by Chambers USA 2026 for Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, 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).

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. His work covers the operational side — designation, sentence computation, First Step Act credits, RDAP, and reentry planning — which frequently determines whether a client’s real problem is a post-conviction problem at all. The legal work is handled by Elizabeth and the firm’s attorneys.

With offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the firm represents clients nationwide. A §2255 motion is filed in the district that imposed the sentence, wherever in the country that is.

Schedule a case review with a federal post-conviction attorney

If you are trying to work out whether a federal conviction or sentence can still be challenged, the two things worth settling first are which vehicle actually fits the claim and how much time is left on it. Both are answerable from the judgment and the docket sheet.

Schedule a case review directly, or call (843) 620-1100. To understand what post-conviction counsel does and how these engagements are structured, see successful 2255 motions and post conviction attorney. If you want to know what a federal 2255 motion lawyer would look at first in your case, the answer is almost always the judgment, the docket sheet, and the date the direct appeal ended.

Frequently Asked Questions About Post-Conviction Relief

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