What Is a 2255 Motion? 28 U.S.C. §2255 Explained

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

What is a § 2255 motion?

A § 2255 motion is a federal prisoner’s motion asking the court that sentenced him to vacate, set aside, or correct the sentence. Filed in the criminal case in the sentencing court, it reaches four grounds: constitutional or legal violation, lack of jurisdiction, a sentence above the statutory maximum, or another defect open to collateral attack.

Key takeaways on what a § 2255 motion is

• Section 2255(a) lists four grounds, not one. A sentence “imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States”; a court “without jurisdiction to impose such sentence”; a sentence “in excess of the maximum authorized by law”; or a sentence “otherwise subject to collateral attack.”
• Custody is a jurisdictional prerequisite. The statute reaches “[a] prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress.” Supervised release and parole count. A fully expired sentence does not.
• It is a motion in your criminal case, not a new civil lawsuit. The clerk dockets it on the criminal docket under Rule 3(b), and there is no filing fee.
• “Otherwise subject to collateral attack” is not a catch-all. A non-constitutional legal error qualifies only if it is “a fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice” — Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 428 (1962).
• Section 2255(b) gives the court four remedies: discharge the prisoner, resentence him, grant a new trial, or correct the sentence.
• AEDPA bolted two gates onto a 1948 statute. The original 1948 remedy had no deadline and no successive-motion bar. Section 2255(f)’s one-year clock and § 2255(h)’s certification requirement both arrived in 1996.

What is a 2255 motion?

A § 2255 motion is the vehicle Congress created in 1948 for a federal prisoner to attack the judgment in the case that put him in prison. It is filed in the district court that imposed the sentence, on the docket of the criminal case, and it asks that court to undo or fix its own judgment.

The operative sentence is 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a), and it is worth reading slowly because every word in it does work:

“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 grounds are listed there, separated by “or”:

1. The sentence “was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.” This is the ground that carries almost all § 2255 traffic — ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, suppression of favorable evidence, an involuntary plea. Which specific claims work is the subject of what claims can be raised in a § 2255 motion and which of them succeed.
2. “[T]he court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence.” A genuine jurisdictional defect — not a disagreement about how the court exercised jurisdiction it plainly had.
3. “[T]he sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law.” A sentence above the statutory ceiling for the offense of conviction.
4. The sentence “is otherwise subject to collateral attack.” This phrase reads like a catch-all and functions like a keyhole. See the section below.

The word “may” matters too. Section 2255 is permissive as to who moves, but it is exclusive as to route: the Supreme Court confirmed in Fernandez v. United States, 608 U.S. 411, 146 S. Ct. 1292 (2026), 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.” If your complaint is that the conviction or sentence is unlawful, this is the statute, and no adjacent motion substitutes for it.

What does 28 U.S.C. § 2255 say, subsection by subsection?

Section 2255 runs from (a) to (h). Most explanations quote (a), mention the one-year deadline, and stop. The table below covers all eight, in the statute’s own words, with a plain-English translation of each.

Table 1. 28 U.S.C. § 2255, subsection by subsection — the statutory language and what it means in practice.

Subsection	What the statute says (quoted)	What it means in practice
§ 2255(a) — the grounds	“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.”	Who may file (a prisoner in custody), where (the sentencing court), on what four grounds, and for what three forms of relief.
§ 2255(b) — the court’s duty and the remedies	“Unless the motion and the files and records of the case conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief, the court shall cause notice thereof to be served upon the United States attorney, grant a prompt hearing thereon, determine the issues and make findings of fact and conclusions of law with respect thereto.” 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.”	A hearing is required unless the existing record conclusively forecloses relief — a lower bar for the movant than “prove it now.” Four remedies on the back end: discharge, resentencing, new trial, or correction.
§ 2255(c) — presence	“A court may entertain and determine such motion without requiring the production of the prisoner at the hearing.”	The movant has no automatic right to be physically present. Where facts turn on events he participated in, production may still be ordered.
§ 2255(d) — appeal	“An appeal may be taken to the court of appeals from the order entered on the motion as from a final judgment on application for a writ of habeas corpus.”	The order is appealable, and the timing follows the civil habeas rule rather than the 14-day criminal rule — but a certificate of appealability is still required.
§ 2255(e) — the saving clause	An application for habeas corpus “shall not be entertained if it appears that the applicant has failed to apply for relief, by motion, to the court which sentenced him, or that such court has denied him relief, unless it also appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.”	Section 2255 is the required route; § 2241 is closed unless § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective.” After Jones v. Hendrix (2023) that opening is far narrower than pre-2023 guidance says.
§ 2255(f) — the one-year clock	“A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to a motion under this section. The limitation period shall run from the latest of—” four listed dates: final judgment; removal of a government-created impediment; the date the Supreme Court initially recognized a newly recognized, retroactive right; or the date the supporting facts could have been discovered with due diligence.	One year, but from the latest of four triggers — and different claims in the same motion can run from different dates.
§ 2255(g) — counsel	“[I]n all proceedings brought under this section, and any subsequent proceedings on review, the court may appoint counsel… Appointment of counsel under this section shall be governed by section 3006A of title 18.”	Discretionary, not guaranteed. 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(a)(2)(B) permits appointment for a financially eligible person “seeking relief under section 2241, 2254, or 2255 of title 28” when “the interests of justice so require.”
§ 2255(h) — the successive gate	“A second or successive motion must be certified as provided in section 2244 by a panel of the appropriate court of appeals to contain—(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.”	Two conditions, and only two. A court of appeals panel must authorize a second motion before the district court may consider it.

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

What can a 2255 motion challenge — and where does “otherwise subject to collateral attack” stop?

A § 2255 motion challenges the judgment: the conviction, the sentence, or both. It does not reach how the sentence is being administered — prison conditions, disciplinary sanctions, sentence computation, or good-time credits, which travel under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the district of confinement rather than the sentencing district.

Within the judgment, the ceiling is set by the fourth ground. “Otherwise subject to collateral attack” sounds unlimited and is not. In Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424 (1962), a defendant whose sentencing judge never invited him to speak — a plain violation of the allocution rule — was denied § 2255 relief. The Court held that a claimed error of law is not cognizable unless it is “a fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice” or “an omission inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of fair procedure.” A rule violation, standing alone, is not enough.

Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333 (1974), marks the other edge. The Government argued that only claims “of constitutional dimension” are cognizable; the Court rejected that, holding the text “cannot sustain” it, because § 2255(a) expressly reaches violations of the “laws of the United States.” Where an intervening change in statutory interpretation means the movant stands convicted of conduct the law does not make criminal, that “inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice.”

So the working rule is a two-part filter. Constitutional claims go through the first ground. Non-constitutional legal errors go through the fourth, and only if they are fundamental. Ordinary trial error, evidentiary rulings, and guideline disagreements that could have been raised on appeal generally do not survive it — and the ones that categorically fail are cataloged on what claims a court will refuse to hear in a § 2255 motion.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: When we evaluate a case, the first question is never “was this wrong?” It is “which of the four grounds in § 2255(a) does this fit, and does it clear Hill?” A great many real grievances — a judge who was unfair, an evidentiary ruling that gutted the defense, a guideline range that feels indefensible — are not defects of the kind § 2255 was built to reach. Sorting that out at the start is what keeps a motion from being dismissed on the papers before anyone reads the facts.

Do you have to be in custody to file a 2255 motion?

Yes. Custody is the first word of the statute’s operative sentence and it is jurisdictional: § 2255(a) reaches “[a] prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress.” No custody, no § 2255 motion, however strong the underlying claim. The five fact patterns that decide the question — physical confinement, supervised release, a detainer, consecutive sentences, and an expired sentence — are worked through on our page on the § 2255 custody requirement.

“Custody” is broader than a cell. In Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U.S. 236 (1963), the Supreme Court held that a person on parole is in custody, because “besides physical imprisonment, there are other restraints on a man’s liberty, restraints not shared by the public generally,” and parole conditions “significantly confine and restrain his freedom.” On the federal side that reasoning covers supervised release, which imposes reporting, travel, and association conditions of the same character.

Custody is also narrower than “still suffering consequences.” In Maleng v. Cook, 490 U.S. 488 (1989), the Court held that a petitioner does not remain in custody under a conviction “after the sentence imposed for it has fully expired, merely because of the possibility that the prior conviction will be used to enhance the sentences imposed for any subsequent crimes.” Collateral consequences — lost firearm rights, immigration exposure, employment barriers — are not custody. Once the sentence is fully served, § 2255 closes and the question becomes whether a writ of coram nobis is available to someone no longer in custody.

There is a third situation the statute handles through the rules rather than the text. Rule 1(b) of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings extends the remedy to a person in custody under a state judgment or another federal court’s judgment who is “subject to future custody under a judgment of the district court.” A prisoner serving a state sentence with a federal detainer lodged against him can attack the federal judgment before he ever begins serving it. The Advisory Committee wrote Rule 1(b) specifically to settle a split among the courts “in favor of the prisoner’s being able to file a § 2255 motion for relief under those circumstances.”

Is a 2255 motion a motion in your criminal case or a new civil lawsuit?

It is a motion in the criminal case — and the practical consequences of that are more useful than the label.

The Advisory Committee Note to Rule 1 is explicit: a § 2255 motion “is a further step in the movant’s criminal case and not a separate civil action.” That characterization does real work throughout the rules. Rule 3(b) directs the clerk to “file the motion and enter it on the criminal docket of the case in which the challenged judgment was entered.” The Advisory Committee Note to Rule 3 states that “[t]here is no filing fee required of a movant under these rules,” a change made “to recognize specifically the nature of a § 2255 motion as being a continuation of the criminal case whose judgment is under attack.” Rule 4(a) sends the motion to the judge who tried the case and imposed sentence. Rule 12 makes both the civil and the criminal Federal Rules available, because the proceeding has a foot in each.

Two things cut the other way, and both matter. First, in United States v. Hayman, 342 U.S. 205 (1952), the Supreme Court described a § 2255 proceeding as “an independent and collateral inquiry into the validity of the conviction” — the reason a movant has no Sixth Amendment right to be present, now codified at § 2255(c). Second, § 2255(d) provides that an appeal is taken “as from a final judgment on application for a writ of habeas corpus,” which means the civil appeal deadline of Fed. R. App. P. 4(a) applies, not the 14-day criminal deadline. Rule 11(b) of the § 2255 Rules says so directly, and adds that these rules “do not extend the time to appeal the original judgment of conviction.”

Read together: your § 2255 motion lands on the criminal docket in front of your sentencing judge, costs nothing to file, and is appealed on the civil timetable with a certificate of appealability required before the court of appeals will hear it. Anyone telling you it is “a civil case” or “just part of your criminal case” is half right in a way that will cost you a deadline.

What does it mean to vacate, set aside, or correct a sentence?

Those three verbs in § 2255(a) describe what you are asking for. Section 2255(b) describes what the court can actually do about it, and it is a four-item list: if the court finds for the movant it “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.”

Vacating a conviction means the judgment of conviction is nullified — legally erased, as though the verdict or plea had never been entered. It is not an acquittal and it is not a dismissal. In most cases the Government may retry the defendant, because vacatur removes the judgment, not the charge. A dismissal ends the prosecution; a vacated conviction returns the case to a pre-judgment posture.

Discharge is outright release, ordered where no valid conviction can stand.

Resentencing leaves the conviction intact and returns the case for a new sentencing proceeding — the remedy where the constitutional defect infected the sentence rather than the verdict.

Correcting the sentence is the narrowest: the court amends the judgment itself, without a new hearing, where the defect is confined to the sentence as imposed.

Which remedy you ask for shapes how the motion is written from the first page, because the four are not interchangeable. A movant who proves a defect at sentencing and asks for discharge has asked for something the finding will not support. What happens between filing and any of these outcomes is set out on what happens after you file a § 2255 motion, and how often each outcome occurs is covered on § 2255 grant rates and timing.

Where § 2255 came from, and what AEDPA changed

Section 2255 was enacted by the Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 967, the same statute that recodified Title 28. Before it, a federal prisoner attacking his conviction filed a habeas corpus petition in the district where he was confined — which meant a handful of districts containing large federal penitentiaries absorbed the entire national caseload, litigating records and witnesses that sat a thousand miles away.

Hayman explains the fix in the Court’s own words: § 2255 “was passed at the instance of the Judicial Conference to meet practical difficulties that had arisen in administering the habeas corpus jurisdiction of the federal courts,” and “[n]owhere in the history of Section 2255 do we find any purpose to impinge upon prisoners’ rights of collateral attack upon their convictions. On the contrary, the sole purpose was to minimize the difficulties encountered in habeas corpus hearings by affording the same rights in another and more convenient forum.” Davis restated the point in 1974: § 2255 “was intended to afford federal prisoners a remedy identical in scope to federal habeas corpus.”

That was the design in 1948, and it is why the remedy is often described as being “as broad as habeas corpus.” Two amendments have since changed the picture in ways that matter more than the origin story.

1996 — the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, Pub. L. 104-132, tit. I, § 105, 110 Stat. 1220, added § 2255(f)’s one-year limitation period and § 2255(h)’s second-or-successive certification requirement. Neither existed before. The original statute said a motion “may be made at any time,” and the Advisory Committee Note to old Rule 9 collects the case law holding there was “no statute of limitations, no res judicata, and that the doctrine of laches is inapplicable.” What AEDPA changed across federal post-conviction practice is set out on our AEDPA page.

2008 — Pub. L. 110-177, tit. V, § 511, 121 Stat. 2545, made further amendments to the section.

The honest version, then, is this: as originally designed the § 2255 remedy was meant to be co-extensive with habeas corpus in a more convenient forum, and for a first, timely motion it still largely is. In the successive-motion posture it is not, because § 2255(h) imposes a gate that 1948 habeas did not have — and the Supreme Court held in Jones v. Hendrix, 599 U.S. 465 (2023), that “§ 2255(e)’s saving clause does not permit a prisoner asserting an intervening change in statutory interpretation to circumvent [the] restrictions on second or successive § 2255 motions by filing a § 2241 petition.” State prisoners run the parallel track under 28 U.S.C. § 2254; the § 2255 rules and the § 2254 rules are published together for that reason.

The four subsections that decide most § 2255 cases

Subsections (e) through (h) are where most motions are actually won or lost. Each has its own page; what follows is the orientation, not the treatment.

§ 2255(e) — the saving clause. Habeas under § 2241 “shall not be entertained” unless “the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.” Before 2023, several circuits read that clause to open a § 2241 door for prisoners with intervening statutory-interpretation claims. Jones v. Hendrix abrogated those tests. A great deal of published guidance still describes them as live law; the current rule, and which claims still route to § 2241, are covered on whether to file under § 2255 or § 2241 after Jones v. Hendrix.

§ 2255(f) — the one-year clock. The period runs from the latest of four dates, which is the single most misread word in the subsection. Different claims within one motion can run from different triggers. Computing your own date from the events in your case is the subject of the § 2255 deadline calculator, and the full post-conviction calendar is on post-conviction deadlines.

§ 2255(g) — counsel. There is no right to appointed counsel in a § 2255 proceeding. Section 2255(g) says a court “may appoint counsel,” governed by 18 U.S.C. § 3006A, whose subsection (a)(2)(B) makes appointment available to a financially eligible person “seeking relief under section 2241, 2254, or 2255 of title 28” when “the interests of justice so require.” The rules add two harder-edged provisions: Rule 6(a) requires appointment where counsel is “necessary for effective discovery,” and Rule 8(c) requires it once an evidentiary hearing is warranted.

§ 2255(h) — the successive gate. A second or successive motion needs authorization from a court of appeals panel, and only two things will get it: newly discovered evidence meeting a clear-and-convincing innocence standard, or a new, previously unavailable rule of constitutional law made retroactive by the Supreme Court. In Bowe v. United States, 607 U.S. 13 (2026), the Court clarified that § 2255(h)’s cross-reference to § 2244 “incorporates the procedures in §2244 only as they relate to how a panel certifies a second or successive filing” — so § 2244(b)(1)’s automatic dismissal of previously presented claims, which applies to state prisoners, does not apply to federal prisoners. The gate is § 2255(h)’s two conditions, and the practical consequences are on second or successive § 2255 motions and whether a new Supreme Court decision applies retroactively to a final conviction. The § 2255(h)(1) standard is materially stricter than the innocence gateway that excuses a default or a missed deadline; the three standards are compared on actual innocence.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The most common misunderstanding I hear from inside a facility is that a § 2255 is “the next appeal.” It is not a sequel to the appeal — it is a different proceeding with a different record, a different deadline, and one realistic shot. What that means in practice is that the work has to be front-loaded. By the time a first motion is filed, § 2255(h) has already narrowed what a second one could ever contain.

What a 2255 motion is not

Four confusions account for most of the wasted filings we see.

It is not an appeal. A direct appeal asks a court of appeals to review the trial record for error. A § 2255 motion asks the district court to consider facts that are usually outside that record — what your lawyer knew, what an investigation would have found, what you were told before you pleaded. The Supreme Court built that distinction into the doctrine in Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500 (2003), holding “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,” because on direct appeal the court “must proceed on a trial record not developed precisely for the object of litigating or preserving the claim.” Which claim belongs in which proceeding is the subject of direct appeal versus § 2255, and claims that belonged on appeal and were left there face procedural default.

It is not a retrial. Nothing about a § 2255 motion re-opens the question of guilt for a jury. The court decides whether the judgment is legally defective. Even a full grant usually produces a new proceeding rather than an acquittal.

It is not a sentence-reduction motion. Compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), Guidelines amendments under § 3582(c)(2), and Rule 35 all ask a court to reduce a valid sentence. Section 2255 asks it to undo an invalid one. Fernandez drew that line explicitly in 2026: a prisoner attacking the validity of his conviction “must proceed through 28 U. S. C. §2255, not 18 U. S. C. §3582.” And a pending compassionate-release motion does not stop the § 2255 clock — the four triggers in § 2255(f) contain nothing that tolls for it. If you have already litigated conviction-validity arguments in a § 3582 motion and lost, start with filing a § 2255 after a compassionate release denial.

It is not automatically defeated by a plea agreement. Many federal plea agreements contain both an appeal waiver and a collateral-attack waiver, and the Government will invoke them. Their enforceability is not the simple proposition the Government’s brief usually makes it, and courts frequently decline to apply them to claims about the plea’s own validity. What such a clause actually forecloses is covered on appeal waiver — it is worth reading before you conclude that a signature closed the door.

Section 2255 also sits inside a larger family of remedies. The writ it replaced for federal prisoners, its history, and what it orders are explained on habeas corpus definition and petition for writ of habeas corpus; the full inventory of what can still change after a conviction is final is on post conviction relief.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: The subsection we spend the most time on before anything is drafted is § 2255(f), not § 2255(a). Grounds can be developed; a missed deadline cannot be undone. We compute the date from the specific events in the client’s case — the judgment, the mandate, the certiorari window, and the discovery date of any new facts — before deciding what the motion will contain, because the calendar decides how much investigation is possible.

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, practicing nationwide in the federal district courts and the courts of appeals. Elizabeth Franklin-Best 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 handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record. She is recognized by Best Lawyers in America 2026 for Appellate Practice and by Chambers USA 2026 for white-collar litigation, and is the author of Reversing Your Criminal Conviction: Develop Your Winning Strategy (2023).

Because a § 2255 motion is filed in the court that imposed the sentence, the firm appears in whichever district that is, admitted pro hac vice where required. What a § 2255 engagement involves at each stage — record acquisition, investigation, drafting, hearing — is set out on the hub page for a federal 2255 motion lawyer.

Speak with a federal post-conviction attorney

If you are trying to work out whether § 2255 is the right statute for your situation, the two questions worth answering first are whether you are still in custody under the judgment you want to attack, and when your one-year period under § 2255(f) began to run. Both are answerable from documents you or your family already have. If that year has already passed, equitable tolling or the actual-innocence gateway can occasionally save a late motion — see equitable tolling.

Schedule a consultation or call (843) 620-1100. The firm represents clients in federal courts nationwide. If your deadline is near, say so when you book — and in the meantime, how to get a § 2255 motion on file correctly and on time walks through the mechanics of a protective filing.

Frequently Asked Questions About What a § 2255 Motion Is

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