Argument of Speaker
Mr. Speaker: The opinion of the Court in No. 98-942 Fiore against White will be announced by Justice Breyer.
Argument of Justice Breyer
Mr. Breyer: William Fiore owned a hazardous waste facility in Pennsylvania; David Scarpone was the manager.
Now, they were tried jointly for violating a state law that forbids operating such a facility, as it is waste facility without a permit, and they were convicted despite the fact that they did have a permit.
But the trial court said that Fiore and Scarpone had deviated so far from the permit that as far as the statute’s concerned it’s just as if they didn’t have one.
They both appealed that conviction, but for reasons of state law, their appeals went to different Courts.
Now the Appellate Courts in Pennsylvania upheld Mr. Fiore’s conviction and it became final, but the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, having granted review on his co-defendant Scarpone’s case, later held that, that statute meant what it said; it said, you have to have a permit, and it did not apply, or you had one but you deviated a lot.
It applied only when there was no permit at all.
So, Scarpone’s conviction was reversed.
Well, not surprisingly, Mr. Fiore who was Scarpone’s co-defendant tried to get a similar result namely get his own conviction reversed, but he failed to do that in the State Court, so he went to the Federal Habeas Court and argued that his conviction violated the Federal Constitution because there was no evidence at all that his conduct satisfied a key element of the crime, namely, the total lack of a permit.
The commonwealth responded that at the time his conviction became final i.e. before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided Scarpone, the statute did not require total lack of a permit.
The deviation was enough.
But Fiore rejoined that the Scarpone decision, even though it came later, the total lack decision was not a new interpretation applicable only in the future, but it was always the correct law of Pennsylvania.
That’s so, he said, either because Pennsylvania Law treats a statutory interpretation in this way i.e. as having always been the law, or (2) because the Federal Constitution requires Pennsylvania to apply the Scarpone decision to him.
The Court of Appeals however decided for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
We agree to renew its decision.
Now, unfortunately, before proceeding with this case, we think it is important to know whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court does consider its Scarpone interpretation to have always been the correct interpretation of the Pennsylvania statute; we therefore will ask them.
We certify the following question to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court pursuant to the rules regarding certification of questions of Pennsylvania law; does the interpretation of the Pennsylvania statute as set forth in Scarpone versus Commonwealth state the correct interpretation of the law of Pennsylvania as of the time that Fiore’s conviction became final.
We are unanimous in that certification.
