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Rh cover “all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States.” Ch. 28, 14 Stat. 385. For most of our Nation’s history, a federal prisoner “claiming the right to be released,” §2255(a), in a collateral attack on his sentence would have relied on these Acts and their successors.

That changed with the 1948 recodification and reorganization of the Judiciary Code. See generally 62 Stat. 869. In enacting the present Title 28 of the United States Code, Congress largely recodified the federal courts’ pre-existing habeas authority in §§2241 and 2243, which, respectively, confer the power to grant the writ and direct the issuing court to “dispose of the matter as law and justice require.” Id., at 964–965. At the same time, however, Congress created §2255 as a separate remedial vehicle specifically designed for federal prisoners’ collateral attacks on their sentences. Id., at 967–968.

The “sole purpose” of this innovation, as this Court acknowledged a few years later, “was to minimize the difficulties encountered in habeas corpus hearings by affording the same rights in another and more convenient forum.” United States v. Hayman, 342 U. S. 205, 219 (1952); see also Davis v. United States, 417 U. S. 333, 343 (1974) (“[Section] 2255 was intended to afford federal prisoners a remedy identical in scope to federal habeas corpus”); accord, United States v. Addonizio, 442 U. S. 178, 185 (1979); Hill v. United