Bowe v. United States · ¶9

This case concerns the more complicated situation when a prisoner returns to federal court after a prior attempt for relief has failed. In this situation, Congress has enlisted the courts of appeals to play a gatekeeping role in the consideration of second or successive filings brought by federal and state prisoners. Under this system, before a prisoner can bring such a filing in a district court, a court of appeals must certify that the filing meets certain threshold conditions. Section 2244 governs authorization requests made by state prisoners, and §2255(h), in turn, governs requests made by federal prisoners. The two have distinct requirements, but through a limited cross-reference in §2255(h) to §2244 for how a filing is “certified” by a “panel,” Congress has borrowed certain of the procedures that apply to state prisoners and applies them to federal prisoners too.

slip opinion
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.