492
Opinion of the Court
a written response to the information." Section 851(c)(2) goes on to provide:
"A person claiming that a conviction alleged in the information was obtained in violation of the Constitution of the United States shall set forth his claim, and the factual basis therefor, with particularity in his response to the information. The person shall have the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence on any issue of fact raised by the response. Any challenge to a prior conviction, not raised by response to the information before an increased sentence is imposed in reliance thereon, shall be waived unless good cause be shown for failure to make a timely challenge."
The language of § 851(c) shows that when Congress intended to authorize collateral attacks on prior convictions at the time of sentencing, it knew how to do so. Congress' omission of similar language in § 924(e) indicates that it did not intend to give defendants the right to challenge the validity of prior convictions under this statute. Cf. Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U. S. 395, 404 (1991) (" '[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion' "), quoting Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Our decision in Lewis v. United States, 445 U. S. 55 (1980), also supports the conclusion that prior convictions used for sentence enhancement purposes under § 924(e) are not subject to collateral attack in the sentence proceeding. Lewis interpreted 18 U. S. C. App. § 1202(a)(1) (1982 ed.), one of the predecessors to the current felon-in-possession-of-a-firearm statute. Section 1202(a)(1) was aimed at any person who "has been convicted by a court of the United States or of a State . . . of a felony." We concluded that " '[n]othing on the
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