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Rh 5–6; see also. To be sure, Congress has undertaken to restrict the writ’s availability somewhat since §2255 was first enacted, but it has nevertheless continued to appreciate the significance of access to postconviction review of the legality of a prisoner’s detention. Hence, even after AEDPA, Congress permits all incarcerated individuals—including those who have been convicted of serious crimes and who are serving sentences that have been imposed by courts of competent jurisdiction—to seek collateral relief. See §§2254(a), 2255(a).

Still, when it enacted AEDPA in 1996, Congress was aware of how §2255’s postconviction processes had been operating on the ground since §2255’s enactment. Thus, Congress quite rationally sought to “ ‘balance’ ” the “ ‘individual interest in justice that arises in the extraordinary case’ ” with “ ‘the societal interests in finality, comity, and conservation of scarce judicial resources.’ ” McQuiggin v. Perkins, 569 U. S. 383, 393 (2013) (quoting Schlup v. Delo, 513 U. S. 298, 324 (1995)).

Section 2255(h) reflects this balancing. “What emerges from a review of the debates over the successive petition restrictions is a clear sense that” Congress wanted to “preven[t] manipulation of the system through relitigation of previously presented claims or strategic withholding of claims for later presentation,” while still creating “a mechanism that would allow prisoners to have one full, fair chance to present their meritorious … claims to the federal courts.” B. Stevenson, The Politics of Fear and Death: Successive Problems in Capital Federal Habeas Corpus Cases, 77 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 699, 772 (2002). As Senator Hatch said at the time: “We have provided for protection of Federal habeas corpus, but we do it one time and that is it—unless, of course, they can truly come up with evidence of innocence that could not have been presented at trial. There we allow successive petitions.” 141 Cong. Rec. 15042 (1995). Then-Senator Biden similarly explained that the goal of AEDPA