380
Opinion of the Court
The District Court certified for appeal the question whether Castro's § 2255 motion was his first such motion or his second. Castro then argued to the Eleventh Circuit that his § 2255 motion was his first; and he asked the court to reverse the District Court's dismissal of that motion. He nowhere asked the Court of Appeals to grant, and it nowhere denied, any "authorization . . . to file a second or successive application."
The Government argues that the Eleventh Circuit's opinion had the effect of denying "authorization . . . to file a second . . . application" because the court said in its opinion that Castro's motion could not meet the requirements for second or successive motions. 290 F. 3d, at 1273. For that reason, the Government concludes, the court's decision falls within the scope of the jurisdictional provision. Brief for United States 16.
In our view, however, this argument stretches the words of the statute too far. Given the context, we cannot take these words in the opinion as a statutorily relevant "denial" of a request that was not made. Even if, for argument's sake, we were to accept the Government's characterization, the argument nonetheless would founder on the statute's requirement that the "denial" must be the "subject" of the certiorari petition. The "subject" of Castro's petition is not the Court of Appeals' "denial of an authorization." It is the lower courts' refusal to recognize that this § 2255 motion is his first, not his second. That is a very different question. Cf. Adamo Wrecking Co. v. United States, 434 U. S. 275, 282-283 (1978) (statute barring court review of lawfulness of agency "emission standard" in criminal case does not bar court review of whether regulation is an "emission standard").
Moreover, reading the statute as the Government suggests would produce troublesome results. It would create procedural anomalies, allowing review where the lower court decision disfavors, but denying review where it favors, the Gov-
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