Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 36

4 

JONES v. HENDRIX 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

(1952).  Such petitions sought judicial review of the legality 
of the individual’s detention, and were filed in the district 
where the person was incarcerated.  Ibid.  This led to some 
problems: Districts that housed large federal prisons were 
disproportionately burdened with habeas petitions.  Id., at 
213–214.  Also, in many cases, the court deciding the peti-
tion was both unfamiliar with the underlying facts and far 
away  from  the  relevant  record,  evidence,  and  witnesses. 
Ibid. 

Congress created §2255—an entirely new process for fed-
eral prisoners to use when seeking postconviction judicial 
review—to  solve  these  practical  problems.  Ante,  at  5–6. 
Under the procedures laid out in §2255, in lieu of filing a 
traditional  habeas  petition,  federal  prisoners  must  file  a 
§2255  motion.  And  any  such  motion  is  to  be  filed  in  the 
sentencing  court,  not  in  the  district  of  confinement. 
§2255(a) (2018 ed.); see Hayman, 342 U. S., at 219. 

Congress  crafted  (what  is  now)  §2255(e)  to  ensure  that
the new §2255 procedure successfully ousted the outdated 
habeas regime it replaced.  Per the first part of that provi-
sion, as a general matter, §2255 becomes the exclusive pro-
cedure  by  which  federal  prisoners  can  collaterally  attack
their convictions.  See §2255(e) (providing that “[a]n appli-
cation  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  . . .  shall  not  be  enter-
tained” where, in essence, the prisoner fails to bring an au-
thorized §2255 motion, or does so and is denied relief ).  Yet 
Congress  also  specified  that,  in  a  circumstance  in  which
§2255 is “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his 
detention,” an individual could still file a habeas petition. 
Ibid. 

There are multiple ways in which §2255 might be “insuf-
ficient” or “[n]ot capable of performing the required work”
of  postconviction  review  of  federal  convictions.    Webster’s 
New International Dictionary 1254, 1271 (2d ed. 1934) (de-
fining  “inadequate”  and  “ineffective”  in  this  manner);  see