J-A11001-22

2022 PA Super 219

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

RAHEEM STEVENSON

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 1157 EDA 2021

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered April 1, 2021

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-51-CR-0000724-2018

BEFORE: BOWES, J., STABILE, J., and McLAUGHLIN, J.

OPINION BY BOWES, J.: FILED DECEMBER 23, 2022

Raheem Stevenson appeals from the judgment of sentence of eight to 

sixteen years of imprisonment followed by ten years of probation that was 

imposed after a jury convicted him of two counts of robbery and one count 

each of burglary and criminal conspiracy.1 We affirm.

On December 3, 2017, Wenting Ruan (“Katie”) and Yuguan Lin (“Lin”) 

parked their vehicle in front of 3000 North Franklin Street in Philadelphia, 

where the couple resided and operated a beer distribution center.

2

 As they 

exited their vehicle, Appellant and his two cohorts surrounded them, taking 

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1 Although Appellant purports to appeal from the order denying his postsentence motion, the appeal properly lies from the judgment of sentence. See 

Commonwealth v. Dreves, 839 A.2d 1122, 1125 n.1 (Pa.Super. 2003) (en 

banc) (finding that a direct appeal properly lies from the judgment of 

sentence, not the order denying the post-sentence motion). 

2 At trial, Wenting Ruan asked to be called “Katie.” See N.T. Jury Trial, 

3/11/20, at 41. 
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Katie’s purse and Lin’s iPhone. The purse contained approximately $700, a 

checkbook, and a red wallet. The perpetrators then demanded entry into the

building. Once inside, the three men threatened Katie and Lin with violence 

while filling black plastic bags with money, Newport cigarettes, and Black & 

Mild cigars. 

Once the parties fled, Katie called the police who tracked Lin’s stolen 

iPhone to a parked vehicle. Inside the vehicle, the police found Appellant 

seated in the front passenger seat on top of Katie’s red wallet while 

surrounded by Newport cigarettes and Black & Mild cigars. Appellant was 

arrested and charged with two counts of robbery, burglary, and criminal 

conspiracy. Execution of a search warrant for the vehicle uncovered Lin’s 

stolen iPhone, a ski mask, and clothing consistent with the victims’ description

of Appellant.

Appellant elected to be tried by a jury. After the Commonwealth’s casein-chief, Appellant indicated that he planned to testify. See N.T. Jury Trial, 

3/12/20, at 68-72. Trial counsel told the court that Appellant had a prior 

conviction for burglary resulting from a guilty plea in 2005 and admitted that 

the conviction likely qualified as crimen falsi. Id. at 70. However, counsel 

requested that the court preclude its admission on remoteness grounds. Id. 

The Commonwealth briefly countered that the conviction should be admissible 

given “the nature of the charges.” Id. at 70-71. The trial court denied

Appellant’s oral motion in limine. Id. Trial counsel immediately conducted a 

supplemental colloquy of Appellant, inquiring whether the admissibility of 
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Appellant’s prior conviction altered his decision to testify. Id. at 71-72. 

Appellant indicated that the ruling had no effect on his desire to testify and 

acknowledged that this decision was in direct contradiction of trial counsel’s 

advice. Id. Thereafter, Appellant testified, asserting his innocence. At the 

conclusion of his direct-examination, trial counsel asked and Appellant 

confirmed that in 2005 he pled guilty to burglary. Id. at 84. The 

Commonwealth did not re-visit Appellant’s prior conviction during its crossexamination or mention it during closing arguments. Id. at 85-94. In its 

closing charge to the jury, the trial court provided a cautionary instruction 

specific to the prior burglary conviction. Id. at 144-45. 

The jury found Appellant guilty of the above referenced offenses and the 

trial court imposed the sentence indicated above. Appellant filed a timely 

post-sentence motion, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and the 

admission of his prior burglary conviction, which was denied. This timely 

appeal followed. Both Appellant and the trial court complied with the 

mandates of Pa.R.A.P. 1925. 

Appellant presents the following issue for our review:

Did the trial court abuse its discretion when it denied [Appellant’s] 

motion in limine to preclude his 2005 burglary conviction, from 

which he was released from confinement thirteen years before 

trial, where:

a) The prosecution failed to provide advance written notice 

of its intent to use the conviction and could not satisfy its 

prosecutorial burden of articulating a need to use it; and,
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b) The trial court admitted the conviction without first 

conducting Pa.R.Evid. 609(b)’s mandatory balancing 

test.

Appellant’s brief at 3 (emphases omitted).

Before we address the merits of the motion in limine issue, we must 

consider whether the claim has been properly preserved for appellate review. 

According to the Commonwealth, the matter is waived. See Commonwealth’s 

brief at 12-15. We agree that Appellant’s decision to offer his own prior

conviction precludes the challenge he raises in this appeal. 

It is well-established that the first prerequisite for a party to challenge 

an evidentiary ruling is to make a timely objection, motion to strike, or a 

motion in limine. In that vein, our Rules of Evidence provide as follows:

(a) Preserving a Claim of Error. A party may claim error in a 

ruling to admit or exclude evidence only:

(1) if the ruling admits evidence, a party, on the record:

(A) makes a timely, objection, motion to strike, or motion 

in limine; and

(B) states the specific ground, unless it was apparent from 

the context; or

(2) if the ruling excludes evidence, a party informs the court 

of its substance by an offer of proof, unless the substance 

was apparent from the context.

(b) Not Needing to Renew an Objection or Offer of Proof. 

Once the court rules definitively on the record - - either 

before or at trial – a party need not renew an objection or 

offer of proof to preserve a claim of error for appeal.

Pa.R.E. 103. Herein, Appellant made an oral motion in limine to preclude the 

Commonwealth from using his 2005 burglary conviction. The Commonwealth 
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opposed the motion, and the court denied it. Accordingly, Appellant initially 

preserved his claim of error. Id.

However, a properly preserved issue may be forfeited when a defendant 

introduces the evidence at trial. In Commonwealth v. Conner, 341 A.2d 

81, 84 (Pa. 1975), our Supreme Court held that when a defendant introduces 

evidence at trial, he cannot later raise a claim of error challenging the 

admission of that evidence. Therein, the defendant’s trial counsel anticipated 

that his prior convictions would come in on cross-examination and made the 

strategic decision to tactically introduce them through his direct examination 

of the defendant. Once admitted by the defense, the Commonwealth did not 

revisit the issue. The defendant was later convicted and appealed his 

conviction, arguing that the admission of his prior convictions constituted a 

due process violation. 

Our Supreme Court found that the claim was waived, explaining:

[the defendant] introduced his past criminal record as a matter of 

trial strategy, to support his credibility and soften the anticipated 

blow in the eyes of the jurors. Having adopted this strategy, which 

appeared to be in his best interest, [the defendant] cannot now 

be heard to complain that his own act of offering such evidence 

violated his constitutional rights. Under these circumstances, a 

new trial is not warranted. 

Id. at 84. Importantly, while the Conner opinion did not involve a motion in 

limine, our High Court did not limit its holding to that precise circumstance. 

Instead, the Court’s analysis focused on which party admitted the conviction. 

Id. at 83-84. 
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Herein, like the defendant in Conner, Appellant made the strategic 

decision to admit his prior conviction in order to lessen the sting of the 

Commonwealth’s anticipated elicitation of the conviction on crossexamination. Accordingly, while the procedural history in Conner is not

identical to ours, the fact that the defendants in both cases introduced the 

convictions themselves and then challenged the admission later is the crucial

point. Thus, our Supreme Court’s decision in Conner supports the 

Commonwealth’s position that claim forfeiture applies. See Commonwealth’s 

reply brief at 2.

Other Pennsylvania cases have also found that a defendant forfeits 

claims of trial court error concerning the admission of objectionable evidence 

when he “opens the door” to the evidence. In Commonwealth v. Lewis, 

885 A.2d 51, 54-55 (Pa.Super. 2005), a prior panel of this court determined 

that a defendant “opened the door” to testimony about his own prior bad acts 

after his counsel questioned a police witness about drug-related encounters

with the defendant. Similarly, in Commonwealth v. Stakley, 365 A.2d 

1298, 1300 (Pa.Super. 1976) (en banc), this court found that defense 

counsel’s suggestion that the defendant had been honorably discharged from 

the military opened the door to rebuttal testimony that he had not, explaining 

that an appellant who delves into objectionable testimony at trial cannot later 

claim error on appeal. 
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This forfeiture analysis is consistent with well-established federal law, 

which provides that a defendant cannot later challenge an adverse motion in 

limine ruling on appeal if he testifies and admits the at-issue prior conviction 

on direct examination. In Ohler v. United States, 529 U.S. 753, 760 (2000), 

the defendant admitted a prior conviction on direct examination after the 

district court issued an in limine ruling that the prior conviction was 

admissible. Thereafter, the defendant was convicted and challenged the 

motion in limine ruling on appeal. The United States Supreme Court affirmed 

the judgment of sentence, finding that claim forfeiture applied because the 

defendant strategically admitted the prior conviction. Id. at 755 (“a party 

introducing evidence cannot complain on appeal that the evidence was 

erroneously admitted.”).

In sum, an appellant who receives an adverse evidentiary ruling can 

either preserve the issue for appeal by lodging an objection to the introduction 

of the evidence, or he can make a strategic choice to forfeit the objection and 

preemptively introduce the evidence himself. He cannot do both 

simultaneously.3 Herein, Appellant chose the latter. Due to the forfeiture of 

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3 To the extent Appellant suggests that he did not forfeit the ruling by 

preemptively testifying because the decision to do so amounted to sound trial 

strategy, we disagree. See Appellant’s brief at 16 (arguing “defense counsel 

properly impeached [Appellant] with it to ‘lessen its sting’ as a defense 

strategy”). Appellant has cited no precedential support for this position, and 

we have uncovered none. Moreover, we generally defer any assessment of 

the strength of a trial counsel’s chosen strategy to collateral review. See 

(Footnote Continued Next Page)
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the claim of error, Appellant is not entitled to litigate the propriety of the trial 

court’s ruling in this appeal.

Judgment of sentence affirmed.4

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 12/23/2022

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Commonwealth v. Holmes, 79 A.3d 562 (Pa. 2013) (reaffirming the general 

principle that ineffective assistance of counsel claims must be deferred to 

collateral review, absent two limited exceptions that are not relevant here).

4 On October 5, 2022, former Assistant District Attorney Tanya Kapoor, 

Esquire, filed an application to withdraw as counsel for the Commonwealth. 

We hereby grant Ms. Kapoor’s request. Ms. Kapoor’s supervisor, Laurence J. 

Goode, Esquire, continues to represent the Commonwealth.