J-A06005-17

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

v.

RICHARD DENNIS

Appellant No. 3122 EDA 2015

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence April 30, 2015

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County

Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0003567-2012

BEFORE: PANELLA, J., SHOGAN, J., and RANSOM, J.

MEMORANDUM BY PANELLA, J. FILED MAY 22, 2017

Appellant, Richard Dennis, appeals from the judgment of sentence 

entered April 30, 2015, in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. 

Appellant raises multiple challenges to his convictions, including an 

argument that the trial court erred by allowing testimony related to a 

bulletproof vest. After careful review, we affirm. 

On November 8, 2011, Appellant was arrested and charged with 

possession of a firearm by a person prohibited,1firearms not to be carried 

without a license,2and carrying firearms on public streets or public property 

____________________________________________

1 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6105(a)(1).

2 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6106. 
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in Philadelphia.3 Appellant proceeded to a bifurcated4jury trial. The trial 

court summarized the relevant evidence presented at trial as follows. 

Philadelphia Police Officer Anthony Washington testified 

that on the evening of November 7, 2011, at approximately 8:30 

p.m., he was on patrol as the passenger with his partner, Officer 

Carter, in plain clothes, when they immediately responded to a 

radio call “for a person with a gun” in the vicinity of 5500 block 

Walton Ave. in the City of Philadelphia. As they approached the 

area, Officer Washington saw [Appellant] and a second man, 

tucking a gun into his waist band [sic], running in their direction 

towards a “minivan,” which was running, parked on the corner of 

56th Street and Walton Ave. As [Appellant] entered the rear 

passenger door and the second man entered the from passenger 

seat, the minivan sped off. 

[Officer Washington] described [Appellant] as wearing a 

black leather jacket and a bullet proof [sic] vest under it. He also 

identified the second man as Chargomir Abdur-Rasheed. 

On seeing this[,] they made a U-turn[,] giving chase and 

calling for backup. Officer Washington testified that the minivan 

pulled to the curb when they activated their lights and siren. He 

immediately ran to the passenger door calling out[] “[s]how me 

your hands” several times. He then opened the passenger door 

and pulled Mr. Abdur-Rasheed out of the minivan as he was 

attempted to hide his gun under the seat. He placed Mr. AbdurRasheed under arrest after recovering his gun from the front 

passenger seat. 

Philadelphia Police Officer William Thrasher [] testified that 

on [the] evening of November 7, 2011, at approximately 8:30 

p.m., he was in uniform on routine patrol as the passenger in a 

marked police vehicle with his partner when they responded to a 

call that Officers Washington and Carter were attempting to stop 

____________________________________________

3 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6108.

4 Appellant elected to proceed without a jury on the charge of possession of 

a firearm by a person prohibited. 
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a fleeing vehicle in the area of the 5500 block of Walton Avenue. 

Being in the vicinity[,] they arrived as the fleeing minivan was 

pulled over. 

When his car pulled up alongside the driver’s side of the 

minivan, Officer Thrasher exited and was looking inside just as 

Officer Washington opened the passenger door. When the 

interior light came on[,] he saw [Appellant] “stuffing a handgun 

in between the seats.” He immediately ran around the minivan 

to the rear passenger door and removed [Appellant]. After 

placing him in “cuffs[]” he recovered [Appellant’s] gun which 

was clearly visible in a large leather jacket found between the 

seats. He identified the gun he recovered as “black in color 

Smith and Wesson .45 caliber revolver, with a brown wooden 

handle, loaded with six live rounds, serial number 17017.” 

On recovering [Appellant’s] gun, [Officer Thrasher] also 

observed a “blue bullet proof [sic] Safariland vest” immediately 

next to where [Appellant] was sitting. He testified that he did not 

recover the bulletproof vest because it did not present a safety 

issue leaving it in place pending the securing of a warrant to 

search the vehicle. 

Trial Court Opinion, 4/18/16, at 5-7. After the close of evidence, the jury 

and the trial court convicted Appellant of all charges. 

On April 30, 2015, the trial court sentenced Appellant to five to ten 

years’ imprisonment for possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, 

three to seven years’ imprisonment for firearms not to be carried without a 

license, and one to three years’ imprisonment for carrying firearms on public 

streets or public property in Philadelphia. The trial court imposed all of 

Appellant’s sentences consecutively for a total aggregate sentence of nine to 

twenty years’ imprisonment. 

Appellant filed post-sentence motions challenging the sufficiency and 

weight of the evidence supporting his convictions, as well as challenging the 
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trial court’s discretion related to a jury question, and the admission of 

evidence relating to a second gun and a bulletproof vest. These motions 

were denied by operation of law. Appellant timely filed a notice of appeal 

and the court-ordered Rule 1925(b) statement. 

On appeal, Appellant raises these issues: 

1. HAS AN ISSUE BEEN PRESERVED FOR APPEAL AND NOT WAIVED 

WHERE TRIAL COUNSEL FAILS TO FILE A TIMELY OBJECTION 

AND THE ISSUE IS RAISED IN A POST-TRIAL MOTION?

2. WAS THERE INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO CONVICT APPELLANT 

AND WAS THE VERDICT AGAINST THE WEIGHT OF THE 

EVIDENCE?

3. DID THE COURT ERR IN ALLOWING TESTIMONY REGARDING A 

BULLET PROOF VEST [sic] AND WAS THAT IRRELEVANT 

TESTIMONY SO HARMFUL TO REQUIRE A NEW TRIAL?

4. DID THE COURT ABUSE ITS DISCRETION IN DENYING A POSTTRIAL MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL ON THE BASIS OF 

INADMISSIBLE AND IRRELEVANT TESTIMONY REGARDING A 

FIREARM THAT WAS NOT THE FIREARM IN THE SUBJECT CRIME 

WAS PRESENTED THAT WAS SO HARMFUL TO REQUIRE A NEW 

TRIAL?

5. DID THE COURT ABUSE ITS DISCRETION IN DENYING A POSTTRIAL MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL ON THE BASIS OF AN 

IMPROPER COMMENT MADE TO THE JURY BY THE TRIAL JUDGE 

THAT WAS SO HARMFUL TO REQUIRE A NEW TRIAL?

Appellant’s Brief, at 8. 

As a preliminary matter, we must determine whether Appellant has 

preserved his issues for our review. After careful review of the record, we 

have determined that Appellant’s failure to object to the trial court’s alleged 
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errors at trial coupled with an insufficient Rule 1925(b) statement has 

resulted in the waiver of all of Appellant’s issues on appeal. 

Through his first issue, Appellant contends that he has preserved the 

challenges raised in his third, fourth, and fifth issue on appeal, despite failing 

to object to these issues at trial, because he raised them in his postsentence motion. See id., at 8, 12, 14-15. These challenges relate to the 

trial court’s admission of testimony related to a bulletproof vest5and a 

second firearm, as well as the trial court’s answer to a jury question. See

Appellant’s Brief, at 15, 17-25. Because he believes including these 

challenges in his post-sentence motion preserves these claims for appellate 

purposes, Appellant avers that the trial court abused its discretion by 

dismissing these claims. See id., at 12-25. We disagree. 

Pennsylvania Rule of Evidence 103(a) provides that a party may claim 

error in the admission of evidence only if he makes a timely objection on the 

record and states the specific ground for the objection, unless it was 

apparent from the context. See Pa.R.E. 103(a)(1)(A)-(B). “We have long 

____________________________________________

5 The transcript reveals that trial counsel did object to the admission of the 

bulletproof vest. However, this objection was based solely upon an alleged 

break in the chain of custody. See N.T., 2/18/15, 31-32. In his appellate 

brief, Appellant concedes that his objection based upon an alleged break in 

the chain of custody was meritless, but contends the testimony and 

admission of evidence related to the bulletproof vest was unduly prejudicial 

and irrelevant. See Appellant’s Brief, at 18-19. As Appellant did not raise 

objections on these grounds at the time of trial, we decline to consider his 

objection to the vest’s chain of custody as preserving his current challenge 

to the bulletproof vest. 
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held that ‘[f]ailure to raise a contemporaneous objection to the evidence at 

trial waives that claim on appeal.’” Commonwealth v. Tha, 64 A.3d 704, 

713 (Pa. Super. 2013) (citation omitted). See also Pa.R.A.P. 302 (“Issues 

not raised in the lower court are waived and cannot be raised for the first 

time on appeal.”) Similarly, to preserve a claim that a jury instruction was 

erroneous, a defendant must object to the charge at trial. See 

Commonwealth v. Spotz, 84 A.3d 294, 318 n.18 (Pa. 2014). See also 

Pa.R.A.P. 302(b) (“A general exception to the charge to the jury will not 

preserve an issue for appeal. Specific exception shall be taken to the 

language or omission complained of.”)

Here, all parties agree that Appellant failed to object to the evidence 

related to the bulletproof vest, the second gun, and the trial court’s answer 

to the jury question at trial. Contrary to Appellant’s belief, the filing of a 

post-sentence motion cannot retroactively preserve claims that an Appellant 

has already waived. See Pa.R.A.P. 302. Therefore, these claims are waived. 

Finally, Appellant challenges the weight and sufficiency of the evidence 

presented at trial. See id., at 8. However, both the trial court and the 

Commonwealth contend that Appellant has waived these claims by failing to 

properly preserve the issues in his court-ordered Rule 1925(b) statement. 

See Trial Court Order, 4/18/16, at 7-8; Commonwealth’s Brief, at 10-11. 

We agree. 

As this Court has recently observed: 
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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has explained that Rule 1925 is 

a crucial component of the appellate process, which is “intended 

to aid trial judges in identifying and focusing upon those issues 

which the parties plan to raise on appeal.” Commonwealth v. 

Lord, 553 Pa. 415, 719 A.2d 306, 308 (1998). “When an 

appellant fails adequately to identify in a concise manner the 

issues sought to be pursued on appeal, the trial court is impeded 

in its preparation of a legal analysis which is pertinent to those 

issues.” In re Estate of Daubert, 757 A.2d 962, 963 (Pa. 

Super. 2000). “In other words, a Concise Statement which is too 

vague to allow the court to identify the issues raised on appeal is 

the functional equivalent of no Concise Statement at all.” 

Commonwealth v. Dowling, 778 A.2d 683, 686 (Pa. Super. 

2001).

“In order to preserve a challenge to the sufficiency of the 

evidence on appeal, an appellant’s Rule 1925(b) statement must 

state with specificity the element or elements upon which the 

appellant alleges that the evidence was insufficient.” 

Commonwealth v. Garland, 63 A.3d 339, 344 (Pa. Super. 

2013) (citing Commonwealth v. Gibbs, 981 A.2d 274, 281 (Pa. 

Super. 2009)). “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.” Gibbs, 

981 A.2d at 281. 

Commonwealth v. Freeman, 128 A.3d 1231, 1247 (Pa. Super. 2015). 

Similarly, an appellant can waive a challenge to the weight of the 

evidence if his Rule 1925(b) statement contains only a boilerplate challenge 

to the weight of the evidence. See Commonwealth v. Seibert, 799 A.2d 

54, 62 (Pa. Super. 2002) (holding that appellant waived his challenge to the 

weight of the evidence where his 1925(b) statement merely asserted that 

“[t]he verdict of the jury was against the weight of the credible evidence as 

to all of the charges”).
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Here, Appellant’s Rule 1925(b) statement simply stated that “the 

verdict was against the weight of the evidence” and that “the evidence was 

insufficient to support the guilty verdict.” Appellant’s 1925(b) Statement, 

11/6/15, at 1 (unnumbered). 

At trial, Appellant was convicted of possession of a firearm by a person 

prohibited, firearms not to be carried without a license, and carrying 

firearms on public streets or public property in Philadelphia. Each of the 

aforementioned charges involves multiple elements. It is clear that Appellant 

completely failed to identify the element or elements that he alleges the 

Commonwealth failed to sufficiently prove or that were against the weight of 

the evidence. See Garland, 63 A.3d at 344; Seibert, 799 A.2d at 62. Thus, 

Appellant’s failure to properly identify his challenge in his Rule 1925(b) 

statement has resulted in a waiver of both his sufficiency and weight of the 

evidence argument. 

Judgment of Sentence affirmed. 

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 5/22/2017