Cite as: 528 U. S. 23 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
cally from the permit's terms. Consequently, it set aside Scarpone's conviction.
In light of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Scarpone, 535 Pa. 273, 634 A. 2d 1109 (1993), Fiore asked the Pennsylvania courts to reconsider his identical conviction. They denied his request. He then brought a federal habeas corpus petition in which he argued, among other things, that Pennsylvania's courts, either as a matter of Pennsylvania law or as a matter of federal constitutional law, must apply the Scarpone interpretation of the statute to his identical case. If this proposition of law is correct, he asserted, it would follow that the Commonwealth failed to produce any evidence at all with respect to one essential element of the crime (namely, the lack of a permit). On this reasoning, Fiore concluded that the Federal Constitution requires his release. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 316 (1979); In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970).
The Federal District Court granted the habeas petition, but the Court of Appeals reversed that decision. We agreed to review the appellate court's rejection of Fiore's claim. Before deciding whether the Federal Constitution requires that Fiore's conviction be set aside in light of Scarpone, we first must know whether Pennsylvania itself considers Scarpone to have explained what Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 35, § 6018.401(a) (Purdon 1993), always meant, or whether Pennsylvania considers Scarpone to have changed the law. We invoke the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's certification procedure in order to obtain that court's view of the matter. See Appendix B, infra.
I
The relevant background circumstances include the following:
1. Fiore owned and operated a hazardous waste disposal facility in Pennsylvania. Scarpone was the facility's general manager. Pennsylvania authorities, while conceding that
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