Cite as: 532 U. S. 374 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
the ACCA and, after granting a downward departure, the District Court sentenced petitioner to 176 months. Id., at 14, 18. Had petitioner not been adjudged an armed career criminal, he would have received at most a 120-month sentence. 18 U. S. C. § 924(a)(2). On direct appeal, petitioner argued unsuccessfully that his two burglary convictions did not qualify as predicate offenses under the ACCA. See 86 F. 3d 1164 (CA9 1996) (table).
Petitioner then filed a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2255 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Section 2255, a postconviction remedy for federal prisoners, permits "[a] prisoner in custody under sentence of a [federal] court" to "move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence" upon the ground that "the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States." Petitioner asserted that his current federal sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution because it was based in part on his 1978 and 1981 robbery convictions. Those prior convictions, he alleged, were themselves unconstitutional because they both were based on guilty pleas that were not knowing and voluntary, and because the 1981 conviction was also the product of ineffective assistance of counsel. App. 51-52. He did not contend that § 2255 relief was appropriate because his current sentence was imposed in violation of the ACCA. Cf. Brief for Petitioner 13.
The District Court denied the § 2255 motion, App. 58-67, and a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, 195 F. 3d 501 (1999). The court held that our decision in Custis "bar[s] federal habeas review of the validity of a prior conviction used for federal sentencing enhancement unless the petitioner raises a . . . claim [under Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963)]." 195 F. 3d, at 503 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Because the Courts of Appeals are divided as to whether Custis bars relief under
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