Cite as: 528 U. S. 23 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
the alteration resulted in the operation of a new facility which had not been permitted is to engage in a semantic exercise which we cannot accept. . . . [W]e will not let [the provision's] language be stretched to include activities which clearly fall in some other subsection." Ibid.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court's conclusion. It wrote:
"[T]he Commonwealth did not make out the crime of operating a waste disposal facility without a permit . . . . Simply put, Mr. Scarpone did have a permit. . . . [T]o conclude that the alteration constituted the operation of a new facility without a permit is a bald fiction we cannot endorse. . . . The Commonwealth Court was right in reversing Mr. Scarpone's conviction of operating without a permit when the facility clearly had one." Commonwealth v. Scarpone, 535 Pa., at 279, 634 A. 2d, at 1112.
4. Fiore again asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to review his case, once after that court agreed to review Scarpone's case and twice more after it decided Scarpone. See Appellee's Supplemental App. in No. 97-3288 (CA3), pp. 59, 61 (including docket sheets reflecting Fiore's filings on Jan. 30, 1992, Jan. 24, 1994, and Oct. 18, 1994). The court denied those requests.
5. Fiore then sought collateral relief in the state courts. The Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pa., refused to grant Fiore's petition for collateral relief—despite Scarpone—because "at the time of . . . conviction and direct appeals, the interpretation of the law was otherwise," and "[t]he petitioner is not entitled to a retroactive application of the interpretation of the law set forth in Scarpone." Commonwealth v. Fiore, CC No. 8508740 (Aug. 18, 1994), p. 6. On appeal, the Superior Court affirmed, both because Fiore had previously litigated the claim and because Fiore's "direct appeal was no longer pending when the Supreme
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