The distinction between direct appeal and collateral attack, the one-year clock and what tolls it, exhaustion and procedural default, ineffective assistance and how prejudice is shown, newly discovered evidence and actual innocence, the certificate of appealability, evidentiary hearings, and the bar on a second petition.
No appeal may be taken from the final order in a habeas proceeding or a proceeding attacking a federal sentence unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability, which requires a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right and must specify the issues satisfying that showing. Where relief was denied on a procedural ground, the applicant must satisfy a two-part version of the test.
A motion for a new trial grounded on newly discovered evidence must be filed within three years after the verdict or finding of guilty, while any other ground carries a fourteen-day deadline. Most circuits require that the evidence was discovered after trial, that diligence would not have found it earlier, that it is material rather than merely cumulative or impeaching, and that it would probably produce an acquittal on retrial.
A claim of ineffective assistance requires both deficient performance, meaning representation that fell below an objective standard of reasonableness measured against prevailing professional norms, and prejudice, meaning a reasonable probability that the result would have been different. A strong presumption treats the challenged conduct as sound strategy. Either part may be decided first, and failure on either defeats the claim.
A federal movant under section 2255(f) and a state petitioner under section 2244(d)(1) each get one year measured from the latest of four events: finality of the judgment, removal of an unlawful impediment to filing, recognition of a new retroactive right by the Supreme Court, or the date the supporting facts could have been discovered with due diligence. Finality is the controlling trigger in the great majority of cases, and the period is a limitation rather than a jurisdictional bar.
A federal court must grant a prompt hearing on a motion attacking a sentence unless the motion and the files and records of the case conclusively show that no relief is available. Allegations must be specific and, if true, entitle the movant to relief. For a state prisoner, a further provision bars a hearing where the factual basis was not developed in state court, subject to two narrow exceptions and an innocence showing.
Where a state court declined to reach a claim on an adequate and independent state procedural ground, a federal court will not review it. Adequate means the rule was firmly established and regularly followed; independent means the ruling did not rest on federal law. The bar is escaped by showing cause external to the defense plus actual and substantial prejudice, or by new reliable evidence such that no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
A claim already presented in a prior application must be dismissed, and a new claim may proceed only on a new retroactive rule of constitutional law or on a previously undiscoverable factual predicate showing innocence by clear and convincing evidence. Authorization must be obtained from a three-judge panel before filing, must be granted or denied within thirty days, and is not appealable or subject to rehearing or certiorari.
Section 2254(b)(1) bars relief unless the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, unless no corrective process exists or it is ineffective to protect the applicant's rights. Fair presentation requires giving the state courts both the operative facts and the federal legal theory through one complete round of established appellate review. A mixed petition must be dismissed, amended, or stayed. A claim with no remaining state remedy is exhausted but defaulted.
Equitable tolling requires two showings: that the petitioner pursued his rights diligently, and that some extraordinary circumstance stood in the way and prevented timely filing. Courts have accepted attorney abandonment, serious mental incompetence, official misleading and prolonged loss of the legal file. They reject ordinary negligence, self-represented status, ignorance of the law and ordinary confinement conditions. Actual innocence operates separately, as an exception rather than tolling.
Direct appeal is confined to the trial record, reaches preserved error and reviews the rest for plain error, and begins with a notice of appeal filed within fourteen days. Collateral attack under section 2255 or section 2254 comes after finality, permits affidavits, an expanded record and a hearing, and reaches constitutional error, want of jurisdiction and a sentence above the statutory maximum. Claims resting on facts outside the record are saved for it.
Section 2244(d)(2) excludes from the one-year period the time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review is pending. Properly filed means accepted in compliance with the rules on form, timing, place and fee, so an application rejected as untimely tolls nothing. Pending covers one complete round including the intervals between levels, but not the certiorari period. Tolling suspends rather than restarts, and section 2255 has no equivalent.
