J-S63037-14

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee

v.

CHARLES JOHN SNAVELY,

Appellant No. 2040 MDA 2013

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence October 24, 2013

in the Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland County

Criminal Division at No.: CP-21-CR-0000378-2013

BEFORE: BOWES, J., PANELLA, J., and PLATT, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY PLATT, J.: FILED NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Appellant, Charles John Snavely, appeals from the judgment of 

sentence imposed after his jury conviction of person not to possess a 

firearm, terroristic threats, and simple assault by physical menace.1 We 

affirm.

On the night of February 1, 2013, Appellant and his then-girlfriend, 

Rose Magaro, were drinking at a bar in Enola, Pennsylvania, when they 

started arguing. Appellant left the bar without Ms. Magaro, and returned to 

the residence they shared. 

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 6105, 2706(a)(1), and 2701(a)(3), respectively.
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When Ms. Magaro arrived home at approximately 1:30 a.m. on the 

morning of February 2, 2013, she found that her belongings were lying on 

the front lawn. Ms. Magaro attempted to enter the residence, but the front 

door was locked and although she banged on it, Appellant refused her entry. 

The temperature that night was approximately ten degrees. (See N.T. Trial, 

9/10/13, at 58). Ms. Magaro called 911 and falsely claimed that Appellant 

was hitting her. (See N.T. Trial, 9/09/13, at 26). The East Pennsboro 

Township police responded to the scene, but left when Appellant would not 

answer the door and Ms. Magaro indicated that she did not wish to go to a 

battered women’s shelter.

Approximately ten minutes later, Appellant allowed Ms. Magaro into 

her residence, where they continued to argue. Forty-five minutes later, 

Appellant retrieved an unloaded rifle from the bedroom and put it to Ms. 

Magaro’s head, threatening that he was going to kill her. The parties 

continued to argue until Appellant returned to the bedroom and loaded the 

firearm. Ms. Magaro again dialed 911 and put the phone on the table when 

Appellant came out of the bedroom with the loaded gun. Appellant 

threatened to kill Ms. Magaro, himself, and anyone who came in the front 

door. William Klusman, the 911 dispatcher with the Commonwealth 

Department of Public Safety recorded the phone call and what was 

occurring.
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When Appellant observed Sergeant Adam Shope of the East Pennsboro 

Township Police Department arrive at the scene with Officer Benjamin Epting 

and Officer Loper,2 Appellant told Ms. Magaro that he was “not going to 

fucking jail” and “he ran out the back door with the gun.” (Id. at 31). Ms. 

Magaro came out of the front door “quite upset and flustered” and yelling to 

the officers that “[h]e’s got a gun.” (Id. at 44). Looking through the open 

front door, Sergeant Shope could see “a flash [that appeared to be] a male 

going . . . out the back door.” (Id. at 31, 44-45). 

The police secured the residence; no one was in the home until 7:00 

a.m. on the morning of February 2, 2013, when Officer Donald Rynard of the 

East Pennsboro Township police department arrived to take photographs of 

the scene. (See N.T. Trial, 9/10/13, at 47-48, 50). Officer Rynard retrieved 

an empty rifle case lying on the bed in the bedroom. (See id. at 49). 

Appellant surrendered at approximately 8:00 a.m. that day. Although 

he did not have a firearm with him when he surrendered, he admitted that 

he had had three of them in his home in the very recent past. (See id. at 

62).

On February 6, 2013, when Officer Epting returned to the residence to 

deliver a subpoena, Ms. Magaro gave him two boxes of ammunition found in 

____________________________________________

2 Officer Loper’s first name is not apparent from the record.
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the same bedroom from where Appellant had retrieved the firearm on the 

night of the incident. (See id. at 64).

On September 10, 2013, the jury convicted Appellant of the above 

charges. On October 24, 2013, the trial court sentenced him to an 

aggregate term of not less than two nor more than ten years’ incarceration. 

Appellant timely appealed.3

Appellant raises two questions for our review:

I. [Whether] the evidence presented at trial [was] sufficient 

to convict Appellant of persons not to possess, use, 

manufacture, control, sell or transfer firearms?

II. [Whether] the evidence presented at trial [was] sufficient 

to convict Appellant of simple assault?

(Appellant’s Brief, at 6).

In Appellant’s issues, he claims that the evidence was insufficient to 

support his conviction of persons not to possess a firearm and simple 

assault. (See id. at 10, 13). Because Appellant has failed to preserve his 

sufficiency claims properly, they are waived.

It is well-settled that:

when challenging the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal, the 

Appellant’s 1925 statement must “specify the element or 

elements upon which the evidence was insufficient” in order to 

preserve the issue for appeal. [Commonwealth v.] Williams, 

959 A.2d [1252,] 1257 [(Pa. Super. 2008)] (quoting 

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3 Appellant filed a timely Rule 1925(b) statement of errors pursuant to the 

court’s order on December 10, 2013; the court filed a Rule 1925(a) opinion 

on March 4, 2014. See Pa.R.A.P. 1925.
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Commonwealth v. Flores, 2007 Pa. Super. 87, 921 A.2d 517, 

522-23 (Pa. Super. 2007)). Such specificity is of particular 

importance in cases where, as here, the Appellant was convicted 

of multiple crimes each of which contains numerous elements 

that the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Id., at 1258 n.9. Here, Appellant . . . failed to specify which 

elements he was challenging in his 1925 statement . . . . While 

the trial court did address the topic of sufficiency in its opinion, 

we have held that this is “of no moment to our analysis because 

we apply Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) in a predictable, uniform fashion, not 

in a selective manner dependent on an appellee’s argument or a 

trial court’s choice to address an unpreserved claim.” Id. at 

1257 (quoting Flores at 522-23). 

Commonwealth v. Gibbs, 981 A.2d 274, 281 (Pa. Super. 2009), appeal 

denied, 3 A.3d 670 (Pa. 2010). 

Presently, Appellant’s Rule 1925(b) statement does not identify which 

elements of the three crimes with which he was charged the Commonwealth 

allegedly failed to prove. (See Concise Statement of the Errors Complained 

of On Appeal, 12/10/13, at 1-2; see also Amended Concise Statement of 

Errors Complained of on Appeal, 12/11/13, at 1-2). Accordingly, Appellant’s 

challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence are waived. 

Moreover, they would not merit relief. Appellant claims that the 

evidence was insufficient because the “[t]he testimony used to convict [him] 

came from a person who admitted she lied to the police about this case 

earlier.” (Appellant’s Brief, at 12, 14). This argument goes to the weight of 

the evidence, not its sufficiency. See Palo, infra at 1055. However, even if 

these were proper sufficiency claims, they would lack merit.

The standard we apply in reviewing the sufficiency of the 

evidence is whether viewing all the evidence admitted at trial in 
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the light most favorable to the verdict winner, there is sufficient 

evidence to enable the fact-finder to find every element of the 

crime beyond a reasonable doubt. In applying [the above] test, 

we may not weigh the evidence and substitute our judgment for 

the fact-finder. In addition, we note that the facts and 

circumstances established by the Commonwealth need not 

preclude every possibility of innocence. Any doubts regarding a 

defendant’s guilt may be resolved by the fact-finder unless the 

evidence is so weak and inconclusive that as a matter of law no 

probability of fact may be drawn from the combined 

circumstances. The Commonwealth may sustain its burden of 

proving every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt 

by means of wholly circumstantial evidence. Moreover, in 

applying the above test, the entire record must be evaluated and 

all evidence actually received must be considered. Finally, the 

trier of fact while passing upon the credibility of witnesses and 

the weight of the evidence produced, is free to believe all, part 

or none of the evidence.

Commonwealth v. Palo, 24 A.3d 1050, 1054-55 (Pa. Super. 2011), appeal 

denied, 34 A.3d 828 (Pa. 2011) (citation omitted). Under this wellestablished standard of review, we would conclude that the evidence was 

sufficient.

Section 6105 of the Crimes Code provides, in pertinent part, that: “A 

person who has been convicted of an offense enumerated in subsection (b), 

within or without this Commonwealth . . . shall not possess, use, control, 

sell, transfer or manufacture or obtain a license to possess, use, control, 

sell, transfer or manufacture a firearm in this Commonwealth.” 18 Pa.C.S.A. 

§ 6105(a)(1). Appellant stipulated that he had been convicted of a crime 

enumerated in subsection (b) and that, therefore it was illegal for him to 

possess a firearm. (See N.T. Trial, 9/10/13, at 69).
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Also, section 2701 of the Crimes Code provides, in pertinent part, that: 

“[A] person is guilty of assault if he . . . attempts by physical menace to put 

another in fear of imminent serious bodily injury[.]” 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 

2701(a)(3).

We first observe that, although Ms. Magaro admitted that she lied 

about Appellant hitting her the first time she called 911, (see N.T. Trial, 

9/09/13, at 26), it was within the province of the jury “to believe all, part or 

none” of her testimony. Palo, supra at 1055. Ms. Magaro testified that she 

and Appellant were drinking, they argued, he threw her belongings on the 

ground outside and locked her out of the house, then, after letting her in, he 

held a loaded gun to her head and threatened to kill her. (See N.T. Trial, 

9/09/13, at 23, 25, 28-30). 

William Klusman testified that, when he received Ms. Magaro’s second 

911 call, he heard a male and female screaming, with the male threatening 

to blow them up. (See id. at 15). The incident was recorded by the 911 

call center, and the jury had the opportunity to listen to Appellant’s threats. 

(See id. at 33). Ms. Magaro feared that Appellant was going to kill her. 

(See id. at 30-31). 

Sergeant Adam Shope testified that, when he arrived on the scene, 

Ms. Magaro was “quite upset and flustered.” (See id. at 44). Officer Donald 

Rynard, who arrived at the home at 7:00 a.m. to take photographs of the 

incident scene, testified that he collected an empty rifle case from the 
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bedroom. (See N.T. Trial, 9/10/13, at 49). He confirmed that no one had 

been in the home since the police had been there hours before. (See id. at 

50). Officer Benjamin Epting testified that, when Appellant surrendered at 

approximately 8:00 a.m., he admitted to him that there had been guns in 

the home within the last two weeks. (See id. at 59, 61-62). When Officer 

Epting returned to the home on February 6, 2013 to deliver a subpoena for 

the preliminary hearing, Ms. Magaro gave him two boxes of eight millimeter 

ammunition she found in the bedroom where Appellant had loaded the gun 

on February 2, 2013. (See id. at 64). There were bullets missing from both 

boxes. (See id. at 35-36). 

Based on the foregoing, and viewing the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, we would conclude that 

there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could find that Appellant 

illegally possessed a firearm, and that he put Ms. Magaro “in fear of 

imminent serious bodily injury.” 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2701(a)(3); see also id. at 

§ 6105(a)(1). Therefore, the evidence was sufficient to sustain his 

convictions of persons not to possess a firearm and simple assault by 

physical menace. See Palo, supra at 1054-55. Appellant’s claims would 

not merit relief, even if not waived.
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Judgment of sentence affirmed.

Panella, J., joins the Memorandum.

Bowes, J., concurs in the result.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 11/18/2014