Cite as: 511 U. S. 485 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
face of the statute suggests a congressional intent to limit its coverage to persons [whose convictions are not subject to collateral attack].' " 445 U. S., at 60, quoting United States v. Culbert, 435 U. S. 371, 373 (1978). This lack of such intent in § 1202(a)(1) also contrasted with other federal statutes that explicitly permitted a defendant to challenge the validity or constitutionality of the predicate felony. See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 3575(e) (note following ch. 227) (dangerous special offender) and 21 U. S. C. § 851(c)(2) (recidivism under the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970). The absence of expressed intent, and the contrast with other federal statutes, led us to determine that "the firearms prosecution [under § 1202(a)(1)] does not open the predicate conviction to a new form of collateral attack." 445 U. S., at 67.
Similarly, § 924(e) lacks any indication that Congress intended to permit collateral attacks on prior convictions used for sentence enhancement purposes. The contrast between § 924(e) and statutes that expressly provide avenues for collateral attacks, as well as our decision in Lewis, supra, point strongly to the conclusion that Congress did not intend to permit collateral attacks on prior convictions under § 924(e).
Custis argues that regardless of whether § 924(e) permits collateral challenges to prior convictions, the Constitution requires that they be allowed. He relies upon our decisions in Burgett v. Texas, 389 U. S. 109 (1967), and United States v. Tucker, 404 U. S. 443 (1972), in support of this argument. Both of these decisions relied upon our earlier decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), holding that the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution required that an indigent defendant in state-court proceedings have counsel appointed for him. Gideon, in turn, overruled our earlier decision in Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455 (1942), which had held that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, long applied in federal-court proceedings, was not itself made applicable to the States by the Due Process Clause. The
493
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007