§ 2255 Filing Checklist: What Goes In and Where

The form you need: Official § 2255 form (AO 243) — the official fillable PDF, unmodified. See the forms library for the issuing authority's page.

Before you draft anything

• Confirm you were convicted in federal court. If you are in custody on a state judgment, § 2254 is your route, not § 2255.
• Work out your one-year deadline under § 2255(f), which runs from the latest of four trigger dates — most often the date the judgment became final.
• Check whether this would be a second or successive motion. If so, you need authorization from the court of appeals first under § 2255(h); filing in the district court without it wastes the filing.
• Decide whether your claim had to be raised on direct appeal. Claims that could have been raised and were not are generally defaulted absent cause and prejudice, or actual innocence.

What Rule 2 requires the motion to contain

• Every ground for relief you have. Rule 2(b)(1) requires you to specify all grounds available to you — holding one back for later collides with the second-or-successive bar.
• The facts supporting each ground, separately. Not conclusions — facts.
• A statement of the relief you are asking the court to grant.
• Printed, typewritten, or legibly handwritten, and signed under penalty of perjury by you or someone authorized to sign for you.
• Rule 2(c) requires the motion to substantially follow the standard form. Use the official AO 243 rather than drafting from scratch.

Filing mechanics

• Rule 3(a): an original and two copies go to the clerk.
• There is no filing fee. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1914 the $350 civil fee attaches to civil actions and a $5 fee applies to habeas applications; a § 2255 motion is filed in the existing criminal case, so neither applies.
• Rule 3(b): the clerk dockets it in the criminal case in which the challenged judgment was entered, and serves the United States Attorney.
• Rule 3(d) is the inmate-filing rule. A paper is timely if deposited in the institution's internal mail system by the deadline — the principle the Supreme Court set out in Houston v. Lack. Use the legal mail system and keep proof.

What happens next

• Rule 4: the judge examines the motion promptly and may dismiss it summarily if it plainly appears you are not entitled to relief. Many motions end here.
• Rule 5(a): the government is not required to answer unless the judge orders it to. Silence is not agreement.
• Rule 6(a): discovery requires leave of court for good cause. There is no automatic right to it.
• Rule 8: the judge decides on the record whether an evidentiary hearing is warranted.
• To appeal a denial you need a certificate of appealability under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c). The notice of appeal alone is not enough.

Not a prediction of any outcome. Deadlines and local rules vary by district — confirm them against your own court's rules and your own record.