Cite as: 532 U. S. 374 (2001)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
in § 2255 cases); see also Reed v. Farley, 512 U. S. 339, 354- 355 (1994).
Justice Souter says that our holding here "rul[es] out the application of § 2255 when the choice is relief under § 2255 or no relief at all." Post, at 390 (dissenting opinion). This all-or-nothing characterization of the problem misses the point. As we have said, a defendant generally has ample opportunity to obtain constitutional review of a state conviction. Supra, at 381. But once the "door" to such review "has been closed," post, at 388, by the defendant himself— either because he failed to pursue otherwise available remedies or because he failed to prove a constitutional violation— the conviction becomes final and the defendant is not entitled to another bite at the apple simply because that conviction is later used to enhance another sentence.
To be sure, the text of § 2255 is broad enough to cover a claim that an enhanced federal sentence violates due process. See ibid. See also n. 2, infra. But when such a due process claim is predicated on the consideration at sentencing of a fully expired prior conviction, we think that the goals of easy administration and finality have ample "horsepower" to justify foreclosing relief under § 2255. Were we to allow defendants sentenced under the ACCA to collaterally attack prior convictions through a § 2255 motion, we would effectively permit challenges far too stale to be brought in their own right, and sanction an end run around statutes of limitations and other procedural barriers that would preclude the movant from attacking the prior conviction directly. Nothing in the Constitution or our precedent requires such a result.
C
We recognize that there may be rare cases in which no channel of review was actually available to a defendant with respect to a prior conviction, due to no fault of his own. The circumstances of this case do not require us to determine whether a defendant could use a motion under § 2255 to chal-
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