Cite as: 532 U. S. 374 (2001)
Souter, J., dissenting
from § 2255 review on the theory that a § 2255 petitioner who challenges underlying state convictions should be required, like a § 2254 petitioner, to exhaust state remedies and to comply with state procedural rules. Cf. 28 U. S. C. §§ 2254(b)-(c) (1994 ed. and Supp. V); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982); Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722 (1991). It is not clear, after all, that such requirements, premised largely on comity concerns and the State's interest in the finality of its own judgments, see, e. g., id., at 731-732, 750, should be imported into this context of a federal sentence imposed when a petitioner who has completed his state sentence seeks only to avoid a sentence enhancement under federal law. In any event, the Court does not purport to apply these specific requirements (which in the § 2254 setting can be waived by the State, see 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(3) (1994 ed., Supp. V); Gray v. Netherland, 518 U. S. 152, 165-166 (1996), and which are subject to explicit exceptions). Instead it imposes a flat ban on § 2255 relief (subject, maybe, to narrow exceptions).2
Having no textual basis or related precedent in habeas law, the Court rules out challenges to ACCA sentencing predicates under § 2255 on the same grounds invoked earlier to bar such challenges under the sentencing provisions of the
cognizable under § 2255). Neither the Custis Court nor today's Court takes the position that the ACCA properly applies, as a statutory matter, to underlying sentences that are in fact invalid. See Custis, supra, at 497; ante, at 382. The language of § 2255 invites a petitioner to establish such a statutory violation.
2 The Court continues to leave the door open (but with no promises) to a motion to revise an ACCA sentence if a defendant has first obtained an order vacating the predicate conviction through a state collateral proceeding or federal habeas review of the state judgment under 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed. and Supp. V). See ante, at 382; Custis, supra, at 497. The plurality adds the possibility of an exception to today's rule if a petitioner can show newly discovered evidence or legal disability during the period of state custody. See ante, at 383-384. These exceptions will not eclipse the rule.
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