How to File a 2255 Motion in Federal Court: Deadlines and Form AO 243

To file a 2255 motion, complete form AO 243, state each ground for relief with specific facts, and submit the original plus two copies to the clerk of the federal district court that sentenced you. There is no filing fee. In almost every case you have one year from the date your conviction becomes final to get the motion filed, and courts enforce that deadline without sympathy.

A motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 is the primary vehicle for someone in federal custody to challenge a conviction or sentence after direct appeals are over. It goes back to the sentencing court and asks that court to vacate the judgment, grant a new trial, or correct the sentence.¹

When Your One-Year Clock Starts

The one-year deadline runs from the latest of four dates: when your conviction becomes final, when a government-created obstacle to filing is removed, when the Supreme Court recognizes a new right and makes it retroactive to cases like yours, or when you discover (or reasonably could have discovered) new facts supporting your claim.¹

Most motions run off the first trigger, and this is where filers miscount. If you appealed and did not petition the Supreme Court for certiorari, your conviction becomes final 90 days after the court of appeals ruled — when the certiorari window closes. If you did petition for certiorari, the clock starts when the Supreme Court denies the petition or affirms your conviction. If you never appealed, the conviction becomes final when the time to file a direct appeal runs out, typically 14 days after sentencing.

Late filings are not always dead on arrival. Federal courts recognize equitable tolling when a filer diligently pursued their rights and some extraordinary circumstance beyond their control prevented timely filing.² The bar is high, and ordinary attorney negligence rarely clears it. Assume the deadline is firm and plan accordingly.

What You Can Raise in the Motion

The statute allows four broad grounds: the sentence violated the Constitution or federal law, the court lacked jurisdiction, the sentence exceeded the legal maximum, or the judgment is otherwise vulnerable to collateral attack.¹

The most common claim is ineffective assistance of counsel, partly because courts allow you to raise it for the first time on collateral review. To succeed, you have to satisfy both prongs of Strickland v. Washington: that counsel’s performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, and that there is a reasonable probability the outcome would have been different without the deficient performance.³ Concrete examples that meet the standard include failing to investigate a viable alibi witness, not filing a suppression motion when evidence was clearly obtained illegally, or giving materially wrong advice about the consequences of a guilty plea.

Other viable grounds include prosecutorial misconduct that deprived you of a fair trial, use of a coerced confession, sentencing based on materially false information, a conviction under a statute that doesn’t actually criminalize your conduct, or a sentence above the statutory maximum.

What Blocks a Claim Before You Start

A 2255 motion is not a rerun of your direct appeal, and three rules will kill claims that don’t respect the boundaries.

First, issues already decided on direct appeal generally cannot be raised again. Narrow exceptions exist for intervening changes in the law or where counsel’s ineffectiveness prevented full and fair litigation the first time.

Second, issues you could have raised on direct appeal but didn’t are procedurally defaulted. To overcome the default, you have to show both cause — something external to the defense that prevented raising the claim — and actual prejudice from the error. There is one narrow escape: a credible claim of actual innocence supported by new, reliable evidence strong enough that no reasonable juror would have convicted you.

Third, if you signed a plea agreement with a 2255 waiver, courts generally enforce it. Most circuits still allow claims that the plea itself was the product of ineffective assistance, or that the sentence exceeded the statutory maximum. Read the waiver language before you invest weeks in a motion the court won’t consider.

Filling Out Form AO 243

The official form is AO 243, “Motion Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence by a Person in Federal Custody,” available from the U.S. Courts website or the clerk’s office at your sentencing court.⁴ Some courts require this specific form, so use it even if you plan to attach a longer memorandum of law.

Before you start, gather:

Your full legal name, prisoner identification number, and current place of confinement.
The sentencing judge’s name, the federal district court, your criminal case number, and the exact dates of conviction and sentencing.
Your appeal history: whether you appealed, the result, and whether you sought Supreme Court review.
Any prior 2255 motions or habeas petitions and their outcomes.

For each ground of relief, the form asks for the specific facts that support the claim. This is where most pro se motions fail. “My lawyer was ineffective” is not a ground. You need to state what counsel did or failed to do, why it fell below professional standards, and how competent representation would have changed the outcome. The same specificity applies to every other type of claim. Vague or conclusory allegations get dismissed at preliminary review without any response from the government.

If you need trial, sentencing, or plea-hearing transcripts to support your claims and can’t afford them, federal law provides for the government to pay when you have been granted in forma pauperis status and a judge certifies that your motion is not frivolous and that the transcript is needed to resolve the issues raised.⁵ File the in forma pauperis application together with your motion.

Where and How to File

The motion goes to the clerk of the federal district court that imposed your sentence.¹ Under the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings, you file an original and two copies.⁶ Sign and date the motion. You are swearing to it under penalty of perjury. Keep a complete copy of everything you send.

There is no filing fee. This is different from most other federal filings. The in forma pauperis application, if you file one, is about incidental costs like transcripts, not the filing itself.

The Prison Mailbox Rule

If you file from prison, the motion is considered filed on the date you deposit it in the institution’s mail system, not the date the court receives it. If your facility has a dedicated legal mail system, you must use it to get the benefit of the rule. To prove timely filing, include a declaration under 28 U.S.C. § 1746 or a notarized statement identifying the date of deposit and stating that first-class postage was prepaid.⁶ If you are filing close to the one-year deadline, document the mailing date when you hand over the envelope. Do not count on reconstructing it later.

What Happens After You File

The clerk enters the motion on the criminal docket of your original case, serves a copy on the U.S. Attorney, and forwards the file to the judge who tried and sentenced you. If that judge is unavailable, the court’s assignment procedure controls.⁶

The judge reviews your motion, exhibits, and the case record. If the papers make plain that you are not entitled to relief, the motion is dismissed at this stage with no response from the government. If it survives, the court orders the U.S. Attorney to file a response within a set period, and you get an opportunity to reply.¹

The court may hold an evidentiary hearing or decide the motion on the written filings alone. A hearing is required when the motion alleges facts that would entitle you to relief if true, and those facts are disputed and not conclusively resolved by the existing record. Most 2255 motions are decided on the papers.

If you win, the court can vacate the judgment and release you, order resentencing, grant a new trial, or correct the sentence, depending on what the case requires.¹ Successful ineffective-assistance claims at the trial stage usually produce a new trial. Successful sentencing claims usually produce resentencing rather than release.

If the Motion Is Denied

You cannot appeal a denial the way you would in a normal case. You first need a certificate of appealability, which a judge will issue only if you have made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied.⁷ The certificate has to identify the specific issues that meet the standard. Substantial showing does not mean you will win on appeal — it means reasonable jurists could debate whether the district court got it right. You can ask the district judge who denied the motion, and if that judge refuses, the circuit court of appeals. The notice of appeal is typically due within 60 days of the denial because the government is a party.

A second 2255 motion after a denial is difficult by design. You cannot simply refile in the district court. A three-judge panel of the court of appeals must certify the successive motion, and it will do so only for newly discovered evidence strong enough that no reasonable jury would have convicted you, or a new rule of constitutional law from the Supreme Court made retroactive to collateral review.¹ Certification is granted rarely. This is one more reason to make your first motion as complete and specific as you can, because a weak second application effectively closes the door on the claim.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2255 – Federal Custody; Remedies on Motion Attacking Sentence
2
Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631 (2010)
3
Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984)
4
United States Courts. Motion to Vacate/Set Aside Sentence (Motion Under 28 USC 2255)
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 753 – Reporters
6
United States Courts. Rules Governing Section 2254 and Section 2255 Proceedings
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2253 – Appeal