The Court issued a per curiam opinion. Given the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's answer to the United States Supreme Court's certified question, retroactivity was no longer an issue. The Court held long ago that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause requires a State to prove each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt before convicting a defendant of a crime. Here, failing to possess a permit was a basic element of the crime as it existed at the time of Fiore's conviction. The "parties agree that the Commonwealth presented no evidence whatsoever to prove that basic element." In fact, Pennsylvania conceded that Fiore had a permit. "The simple, inevitable conclusion is that Fiore's conviction fails to satisfy the Federal Constitution's demands."
