388
Souter, J., dissenting
a prior conviction for constitutional infirmity." Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 765 (1994) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original). The door in Custis remained open to an attack on the prior state convictions, through a state or federal habeas challenge to the underlying convictions themselves. See Custis, supra, at 497 (Custis "was still 'in custody' for purposes of his state convictions at the time of his federal sentencing under § 924(e)," and could thus "attack his state sentences in Maryland or through federal habeas review"). This case presents the distinct question of what happens when that door has been closed.
The Court's reasons for reading 28 U. S. C. § 2255 (1994 ed., Supp. V) as restrictively as it read the ACCA sentencing provisions have nothing to do either with the text of § 2255 or with any extension of rules governing habeas review of state convictions under 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed. and Supp. V). The language of § 2255 providing a federal prisoner with the right to relief because a sentence "was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States" is obviously broad enough to include a claim that a prior conviction used anew to mandate sentence enhancement under the ACCA was obtained unconstitutionally, so that the new sentence itself violates the terms of the ACCA or the Constitution.1 Nor does the Court rest its exclusion of such claims
1 The Government argues, citing Custis v. United States, 511 U. S. 485 (1994), that 28 U. S. C. § 2255 (1994 ed., Supp. V) does not provide a remedy here because "the Constitution is not violated when a conviction that is facially valid is used to enhance a sentence for committing another crime." Brief for United States 12. This misstates the holding of Custis, which merely held (with one exception discussed below) that neither the ACCA nor the Constitution provides a forum at the sentencing hearing for challenges to the underlying conviction. 511 U. S., at 487. The constitutional holding was necessarily limited to the statutory scheme considered. And, in any event, § 2255 provides an explicit remedy for a sentence that violates federal law, not solely the Constitution. Cf. Hill v. United States, 368 U. S. 424, 428 (1962) (describing types of fundamental errors that are
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