Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 37

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

5 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

also Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the Eng-
lish  Language  1239,  1255  (1942)  (similar).  For  example,
§2255 would not be up to the task if it would be impossible
or impracticable for a federal prisoner to file a §2255 peti-
tion.  Ante, at 6, 11. 

The case before us involves another way that §2255 can
be  inadequate  or  ineffective—where  the  newly  created
§2255 procedure, perhaps inadvertently, blocks a prisoner 
from bringing a claim that was previously cognizable in ha-
beas.  This  is  an  inadequacy  concerning  the  operation  of 
§2255  from  Congress’s  perspective,  because  the  “sole  pur-
pose” of §2255 “was to minimize the difficulties encountered 
in habeas corpus hearings” while still “affording the same 
rights  in  another  and  more  convenient  forum.”    Hayman, 
342 U. S., at 219 (emphasis added); see also Davis v. United 
States, 417 U. S. 333, 343 (1974) (“Th[e] history makes clear 
that §2255 was intended to afford federal prisoners a rem-
edy identical in scope to federal habeas corpus” (emphasis
added));  Sanders  v.  United  States,  373  U. S.  1,  14  (1963) 
(“[I]t  conclusively  appears  from  the  historic  context  in 
which §2255 was enacted that the legislation was intended 
simply to provide in the sentencing court a remedy exactly 
commensurate with that which had previously been availa-
ble by habeas corpus” (emphasis added; internal quotation
marks omitted)). 

That much is not in dispute—the majority acknowledges
that  Congress  intended  to  maintain  equivalence  with  the 
claims available in habeas when it enacted §2255.  See ante, 
5–6.  Consequently, in any circumstance in which the new 
§2255 procedure actually operates to foreclose a postconvic-
tion claim that a prisoner could have brought previously in 
a habeas petition, the §2255 process is patently inadequate
to accomplish Congress’s aim of allowing prisoners to test
the legality of their detention under §2255 to the same ex-
tent  as  they  could  have  in  the  habeas  regime  that  §2255 
replaced.