6. In TUNICK v. SAFIR, 228 F.3d 135 (2d Cir. 2000), a photographer challenged the locality’s refusal to grant him a permit to conduct a photo shoot of seventy-five to one hundred nude models configured “in an abstract formation” on a residential street in New York City.

Tunick claimed that his planned event was exempt from a New York statute that bans public nudity except for “any person entertaining or performing in a play, exhibition, show or entertainment.” The Second Circuit petitioned New York’s highest court to resolve the scope of the public nudity ban, emphasizing the need for expedition given the important First Amendment rights at stake. The New York court declined to answer, explaining that “even with an expedited schedule for new briefing, argument and deliberation, this Court’s necessary decisional process would add some months to the life of this case.” 94 N.Y.2d 709, 711, 709 N.Y.S.2d 881, 883, 731 N.E.2d 597, 599 (2000). Would the New York court have been obliged to answer a certified question had it come from the United States Supreme Court?