Com. v. Easley, R.

• Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: November 5, 2025
• Docket: 1267 WDA 2024
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

J-S24025-25

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : ROBERT TJ EASLEY : : Appellant : No. 1267 WDA 2024

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered June 3, 2024 In the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-65-CR-0002431-2022

BEFORE: NICHOLS, J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and LANE, J.

MEMORANDUM BY McLAUGHLIN, J.: FILED: NOVEMBER 5, 2025

Robert TJ Easley appeals from the judgment of sentence entered on his

convictions for persons not to possess firearms, receiving stolen property,

possession of a controlled substance, and possession of drug paraphernalia.1

Easley argues his firearms conviction is unconstitutional and that the court

erred in refusing to consider his ineffectiveness claims. We affirm.

The charges arose after law enforcement officers, who were

investigating a missing person, encountered Easley in a hotel room. Easley

possessed a stolen firearm at the time. Law enforcement also recovered

marijuana and drug paraphernalia from the room.

Easley was ineligible to possess a firearm under Section 6105 of the

Crimes Code due to his two prior felony convictions in the state of Michigan ____________________________________________

1 See 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 6105(a)(1), 3925(a); 35 P.S. § 780-113(a)(16), (a)(32). J-S24025-25

for an offense equivalent to receiving stolen property.2 Easley had been

convicted once of receiving a stolen vehicle, and once of receiving a stolen

firearm.

After the jury found Easley guilty, the court sentenced him to an

aggregate of four to 10 years’ incarceration, followed by 12 months of

probation. Easley filed post-sentence motions, including claims of trial counsel

ineffectiveness and a constitutional challenge to his firearms conviction. The

trial court denied the motions. This appeal followed.

Easley raises the following issues:

1. Whether the court below erred in denying [Easley’s] constitutional challenge to 18 Pa.C.S. § 6105(a)(1)?

2. Whether the court below erred in denying [Easley] an opportunity to litigate ineffective assistance of counsel claims through post-sentence motions?

Easley’s Br. at 7 (suggested answers omitted).

Easley first argues that the persons not to possess firearms statute –

Section 6105 – is both facially unconstitutional and unconstitutional as applied

to him. He asserts that the section of the statute that prohibits persons twice

convicted of receiving stolen property, or an equivalent offense, from

possessing firearms, violates the Second Amendment because it applies to

persons who committed property crimes, rather than violent offenses. Easley

argues that Second Amendment jurisprudence – most notably United States

v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024) – only allows for restrictions on firearm ____________________________________________

2 See 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 3925, 6105(b).

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possession by persons shown to be violent, in accordance with historical,

traditional firearms restrictions. Easley contends “[t]here is no historical

analog at the founding of our nation for convicting someone of possessing a

firearm illegally when the underlying predicate offense is merely a property

offense[.]” Id. at 16-17. Easley also maintains Section 6105 is

unconstitutional as applied to him, because he “has not committed a crime of

violence.” Id. at 15.

The constitutionality of a statute presents a pure question of law.

Commonwealth v. Brooker, 103 A.3d 325, 334 (Pa.Super. 2014). As such,

our standard of review is de novo and our scope of review is plenary. Id.

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states, “A well

regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of

the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” U.S.C.A. Const.

Amend. II.

Section 6105(a)(1) of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code restricts persons

from possessing, using, manufacturing, controlling, selling, or transferring

firearms, if they have been previously convicted of certain offenses. See 18

Pa.C.S.A. § 6105(a)(1).3 Subsection (b) enumerates the predicate offenses,

____________________________________________

3 Section 6105(a)(1) states,

A person who has been convicted of an offense enumerated in subsection (b), within or without this Commonwealth, regardless of the length of sentence . . . shall not possess, use, control, sell, (Footnote Continued Next Page)

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including the theft offense at issue here: “Section 3925 (relating to receiving

stolen property) upon conviction of the second felony offense.” Id. at §

6105(b). Section 3925, in turn, provides that the offense of receiving stolen

property is to be graded as a felony only in certain situations, including when

the stolen property is an automobile or firearm. See id. at § 3903(a)(3), (a.1).

Subsection (b) of Section 6105 also includes, as a predicate offense, “[A]ny

offense equivalent to any of the above-enumerated offenses under the

statutes of any other state or of the United States.” Id. at § 6105(b).

Importantly, subsection (d) allows a person subject to the statute to

apply to the Court of Common Pleas for relief, including when “[a] period of

ten years, not including any time spent in incarceration, has elapsed since the

most recent conviction of the applicant of a crime enumerated in subsection

(b).” Id. at § 6105(d)(3)(ii). Section 6105.1 further outlines the procedure for

restoration of firearms rights, and provides for a hearing in open court and a

judicial determination as to whether “the applicant’s character and reputation

is such that the applicant would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to

public safety.” See id. at § 6105.1(a)(3); see also § 6105(e)(1).

Here, Easley argues that by including receiving stolen property (and its

out-of-state equivalent) as a predicate offense, Section 6105(a) and (b) are

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).

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both facially unconstitutional and unconstitutional as applied to him. 4 We

disagree.

We will first consider Easley’s as-applied challenge. Our analysis is

guided by the following. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen,

597 U.S. 1 (2022), the Supreme Court of the United States held that a two-

part analysis applies to a challenge brought under the Second Amendment:

When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

597 U.S. at 24.5

The first part of the test requires the court to determine whether the

Second Amendment applies to the legislated conduct, i.e., whether the

challenged legislation infringes “the right of the people to keep and bear

arms.” This Court has already determined that convicted felons are included

in “the people” to whom the Second Amendment’s protections apply. See

Commonwealth v. Randolph, No. 487 WDA 2024, --- A.3d ---, 2025 WL

4 Easley restricts his argument to the Second Amendment of the United States

Constitution.

5 The Court declined to adopt the use of means-end scrutiny in its consideration of Second Amendment challenges. Bruen, 597 U.S. at 17.

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2166516, at *7 (Pa.Super. filed July 31, 2025).6 We have also held the Second

Amendment covers the application of Section 6105(a)(1). Id.

The second part of the test then requires the Commonwealth to present

an historical analogue to the challenged statute to show that it “is consistent

with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Bruen, 597 U.S.

at 34; see also id. at 30 (stating government must “identify a well-

established and representative historical analogue”) (emphasis removed);

Barris v. Stroud Twp., 310 A.3d 175, 208 (Pa. 2024).7 The challenged

regulation need not be a “dead ringer for historical precursors” or the

“historical twin” of a previous statute but must “be analogous enough to pass

constitutional muster.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 30. To make this determination, a

court must consider, at least, “how and why the regulations burden a law-

abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense.” Id. at 29.

6 In Randolph, we noted a conflict between two of our previous decisions on

the matter: Commonwealth v. Farmer, 329 A.3d 449 (Pa.Super. 2024), appeal granted, No. 44 MAL 2025, 2025 WL 1873446 (Pa. July 8, 2025), and Commonwealth v. McIntyre, 333 A.3d 417 (Pa.Super. 2025). We found ourselves bound by Farmer, as it was the earlier decision and had not been overruled by McIntyre. Randolph, 2025 WL 2166516, at *7 n.4. See also Range v. Att’y Gen., 124 F.4th 218, 228 (3d Cir. 2024) (rejecting the argument that the Second Amendment does not apply to persons who have been convicted of crimes).

7 See also Commonwealth v. Anderson, No. 1370 EDA 2022, 2024 WL 5205507 at **5 (Pa.Super. filed Dec. 24, 2024) (unpublished mem.) (placing burden on Commonwealth). This burden-shifting regime differs from that applicable to other constitutional standards under which the party “challenging the constitutionality of a statute [must] demonstrate that it clearly, plainly, and palpably violates the constitution.” Commonwealth v. Omar, 981 A.2d 179, 185 (Pa. 2009).

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Last year, in Rahimi, the United States Supreme Court considered a

federal law that prohibited a person subject to a domestic violence restraining

order from possessing firearms if the order included a judicial finding that the

person “represents a credible threat to the physical safety” of their partner or

their partner’s child. Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 685. The Court reviewed founding-

era surety and “going armed” laws, and determined that “[s]ince the

founding,” disarmament laws have applied to those individuals “found to pose

a credible threat to the physical safety of others.” Id. at 690. The Court also

observed that the federal statute imposed only a temporary disarmament. Id.

at 699. The Court noted that surety bonds were of limited duration and the

going arms laws provided for imprisonment, and concluded that “if

imprisonment was permissible to respond to the use of guns to threaten the

physical safety of others, then the lesser restriction of temporary disarmament

. . . is also permissible.” Id. at 682.

While the Court rejected the argument that the government could

disarm the appellant based on a vague assertion that he was not

“responsible,” id. at 701-02, it clarified it did “not suggest that the Second

Amendment prohibits the enactment of laws banning the possession of guns

by categories of persons thought by a legislature to present a special danger

of misuse.” Id. at 698. The Court also reiterated its view that “many . . .

prohibitions, like those on the possession of firearms by ‘felons and the

mentally ill,’ are ‘presumptively lawful.’” Id. (quoting District of Columbia

v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626, 627 n.26 (2008)).

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Thus, contrary to Easley’s argument, while Rahimi was centered on

whether certain historical analogues support the disarmament of previously-

violent individuals, it acknowledged that this was not the only traditional,

historical reason for disarmament, as the legislature could also identify classes

of persons thought “to present a special danger of misuse.” Id. Moreover, it

reaffirmed that restrictions on firearm possession by convicted felons, as such

a class, remain presumptively constitutional.

Following Rahimi, this Court decided Commonwealth v. Jenkins, 328

A.3d 1076 (Pa.Super. 2024), appeal granted, No. 18 MAL 2025, 2025 WL

1874050 (Pa. July 8, 2025), and Randolph. In Jenkins, we upheld Section

6105(c)(1), which disarms fugitives. 328 A.3d at 1094. In Randolph, we

upheld Section 6105(c)(2), which disarms persons convicted of felonious drug

trafficking. 2025 WL 2166516, at *10. While our holding in both cases was

premised on whether such persons were perceived to pose a credible threat

to the safety of others, in neither case did we proclaim that a predicate felony

offense must be a violent one to justify disarmament by the legislature.

Rather, we observed that there is historical precedent for the legislature’s

disarmament of certain classes of individuals, irrespective of an established,

individualized risk of violence:

As numerous courts have recounted in their opinions, categories of people have historically been disarmed despite not having actually engaged in violent behavior. See, e.g., [United States v.] Jackson, 110 F.4th [1120,] 1126-27 [(8th Cir. 2024)] (discussing colonial regulations that prohibited certain classes of persons from owning firearms, such as those who fail to swear a

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loyalty oath); see also Jenkins, 328 A.3d 1092 (highlighting firearms prohibitions relating to sureties and vagrants).

Randolph, 2025 WL 2166516 at *9.

Here, the Commonwealth does not specifically argue that Easley’s

criminal history proves he poses a credible threat to the safety of others.

Rather, the Commonwealth asserts that restricting firearms possession by

those specifically convicted of felony theft is rooted in our Nation’s history and

tradition. It directs us to the Fifth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Diaz,

116 F.4th 458 (5th Cir. 2024), cert denied, 145 S.Ct. 2822 (June 23, 2025).

In Diaz, the Fifth Circuit noted that at the time of the Founding, the

crime of theft was considered a felony, and that the country has a historical

tradition of severely and permanently punishing those convicted of theft,

including by capital punishment. 116 F.4th at 468-69. It further noted that

“[i]mposing permanent disarmament as punishment” is a punishment “within

our Nation’s history and tradition,” and that, at the Founding, “the government

could prevent people who had committed crimes or were ‘quarrelsome’ from

accessing weapons.” Id. at 470, 471. The Fifth Circuit sanctioned the federal

statute punishing felony theft through disarmament, as this is a less severe

punishment than capital punishment. It relied on the Supreme Court’s

pronouncement in Rahimi that, “if imprisonment was permissible to respond

to the use of guns to threaten the physical safety of others, then the lesser

restriction of temporary disarmament . . . is also permissible.” Id. at 469

(quoting Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 699).

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While we find Diaz persuasive, we find the thorough analysis provided

by the Honorable Cheryl Ann Krause’s concurrence in the Third Circuit’s

Range decision more apt here. See Range, 124 F.4th at 250-85 (Krause, J.,

concurring).8 The majority in Range found the federal felon-in-possession law

unconstitutional as applied to a person who had previously pleaded guilty to

one felony count for making a false statement on a food stamp application.

See Range, 124 F.4th at 231. The majority found the government failed to

present evidence that the appellant “poses a physical danger to others or that

food-stamp fraud is closely associated with physical danger,” and vacated his

firearms conviction. Id. at 230.

In her concurrence, Judge Krause rejected the majority’s conclusion that

the federal statute was not consistent with historical analogues. Judge Krause

reviewed English, colonial, revolutionary-war, and antebellum era laws that

categorically disarmed entire classes of people. These included laws disarming

members of certain groups, including religious and political groups, because

it was believed that such classes of persons could not be trusted to obey the

law. Id. at 255-66. While Judge Krause rejected the bigotry inherent in laws

presuming criminal propensity based on race or religion, she emphasized they

nonetheless demonstrated “the tradition of categorial, status-based

disarmaments.” Id. at 257 n.29; see also id. at 266 n.92.

8 Judge Krause was joined by Judge Roth.

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Judge Krause noted that more recently, states have disarmed other

broad classes, including persons under the age of 18 or 21, “vagrants,”

“drunks,” and “the mentally ill.” Id. at 266. Like the earlier laws, those laws

“show that legislatures were empowered to disarm entire groups based on

prevailing judgments about which categories of people posed ‘a special danger

of [misusing]’ firearms.” Id. at 267 (quoting Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 698). Judge

Krause also observed that nearly all of the historical examples she cited

provided a mechanism whereby the person affected could rebut the

presumption that they pose any individual danger of misusing firearms.

Judge Krause also reviewed colonial-era punishments for felony

convictions, including non-violent felonies, and found permissible

punishments often included the death penalty or estate forfeiture (and thus,

firearm forfeiture). Id. at 268. Other laws disarmed people convicted of lesser

crimes. Id. at 268-69. While some jurisdictions did away with the death

penalty for non-violent felonies, “they continued to exercise their authority to

permanently punish non-violent felons,” including through life imprisonment.

Id. at 270-71. Some laws enacted after the Founding also deprived those

convicted of non-violent crimes of fundamental rights, including the right to

bear arms. Id. at 271-73. Judge Krause also noted that Rahimi instructs that

“the availability of a greater penalty for an analogous offense at the Founding

implies that a lesser penalty is constitutional today.” Id. at 251.

Judge Krause’s historical analysis led her to conclude that “[t]he

Founding generation understood that felons—who could be sentenced to death

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or life imprisonment, stripped of their fundamental rights, including their right

to arms,” were as a group “ presumed to pose a special risk of misusing arms.”

Id. at 273 (footnote omitted). She observed that, in disarming felons, the

current federal felon-in-possession law was directed at those convicted of

committing the crimes “deemed most serious by modern-day legislatures in

their respective jurisdictions,” and was enacted because “Congress obviously

determined that firearms must be kept away from felons[,] because they

belong to a class who might be expected to misuse them.” Id. at 274 (cleaned

up).9

Judge Krause nonetheless agreed with the majority that the appellant’s

firearms conviction was unconstitutional – not because the federal statute

categorically disarmed even non-violent felons, but because, unlike the

9 Other circuits have similarly held that disarmament of felons, as a class, is

constitutional, and have refused to draw a distinction between violent and non-violent predicate felony convictions. See United States v. Hunt, 123 F.4th 697, 707-08 (4th Cir. 2024) (concluding, under the second step of the Bruen test, that because felons “have ‘demonstrated disrespect for legal norms of society,’ the legislature has determined that ‘the category as a whole present[s] an unacceptable risk of danger if armed,’” and therefore any felony conviction can support disarmament; stating, “Just as early legislatures retained the discretion to disarm categories of people because they refused to adhere to legal norms in the pre-colonial and colonial era, today’s legislatures may disarm people who have been convicted of conduct the legislature considers serious enough to render it a felony”), cert denied, 145 S. Ct. 2756 (2025); Jackson, 110 F.4th at 1125, 1127 (rejecting the “need for felony-by- felony litigation regarding the constitutionality” of the federal felon-in- possession law; noting the “historical record suggests that legislatures traditionally possessed discretion to disqualify categories of people from possessing firearms to address a danger of misuse by those who deviated from legal norms, not merely to address a person’s demonstrated propensity for violence”).

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historical analogues, it did not allow dispossessed felons to “have a meaningful

opportunity, after successfully serving [their] sentence[s], to show that the

burden should be lifted based on individualized findings.” Id. at 252 (footnote

omitted); see also id. at 275. Judge Krause found that although the federal

statute contains a mechanism for individual relief, it is not “meaningfully

available” unless a felon receives a rare expungement or pardon. Id. at 276.

Judge Krause concurred in vacating the appellant’s conviction, finding that, in

spending over 30 years since his theft offense in which he committed only

minor infractions, he had rebutted the presumption that as a convicted felon

he poses a special risk of firearm misuse. Id. at 277.

Here, Section 6105(a)(1) restricts Easley from possessing a firearm on

the basis that he has been twice convicted of felony theft. This law, like its

federal counterpart which Judge Krause analyzed in Range, recognizes that

felons, as a class, presumptively pose a heightened risk of danger. The

historical analogues Judge Krause identified establish that the legislature has

the authority both to identify such classes of persons and to preemptively

disarm them, regardless of whether they have been shown to be violent.

Moreover, unlike the defect Judge Krause found in the federal statute,

Pennsylvania law provides a viable mechanism for those who have been

disarmed to seek to regain firearm rights. See 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 6105(d),

6105.1. We have previously noted that this renders Section 6105 “less

restrictive than some of the historical laws that permanently disarmed

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individuals without any conviction simply because they belonged to a certain

class.” See Randolph, 2025 WL 2166516, at *10.

The General Assembly’s determination that those twice convicted of

receiving stolen property, graded as a felony, should be disarmed, with an

opportunity to regain firearm rights under certain conditions, fits comfortably

within our nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation. We thus find

no as-applied Second Amendment violation. As Easley’s as-applied challenge

fails, so does his facial challenge. See Randolph, 2025 WL 2166516 at *11

(“Since we have already concluded that § 6105 is constitutional as applied to

[the a]ppellant, his facial challenge cannot succeed because he has not

demonstrated that no set of circumstances exists under which the [statute]

would be valid”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).10

Finally, Easley argues the court erred in refusing to allow him to litigate

his claims of trial counsel ineffectiveness. He argues that counsel was

ineffective in:

a. Failing to request and/or argue for a coercion/voluntariness instruction with respect to [Easley’s] statement to police;

b. Failing to introduce and/or offer as an exhibit the inventory in which the allegedly stolen firearm was absent/not listed;

c. Failing to review [Easley’s] prospective testimony and/or prepare [Easley] to testify at the trial; and

10 As Judge Roth pointed out in her concurrence in Range, Rahimi and Bruen

“have blurred the lines between facial and as-applied challenges under the Second Amendment.” Range, 124 F.4th at 285.

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d. Failing to object to prejudicial evidence relating to the juvenile female.

Easley’s Br. at 21.

Easley acknowledges his ineffectiveness claims “will require

development of a record, including testimony of Mr. Easley’s trial counsel, as

to why certain tactical decisions were made.” Id. at 22. Nonetheless, he claims

the shortness of his sentence constitutes good cause for unitary review. He

maintains it would be “unjust for [him] to be forced to serve virtually all of his

prison sentence before the [c]ourt reaches his claim of ineffective assistance

of counsel.” Id. at 23. Easley points out that he has already completed two

and a half years of his sentence, and if he is forced to wait until the conclusion

of his direct appeal to file a Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”) petition, he

may have already completed his minimum four-year sentence.

Ineffective assistance of counsel claims are generally foreclosed until

collateral review, when the defendant may advance them in a PCRA petition.

Commonwealth v. Holmes, 79 A.3d 562, 563 (Pa. 2013). However, in some

circumstances, a defendant may advance such a claim in post-sentence

motions and direct appeal, a process referred to as “unitary review.” Id. at

564 n.2. The trial court may entertain the claims in the following situations:

(i) in extraordinary circumstances where a discrete claim (or claims) of trial counsel ineffectiveness is apparent from the record and meritorious to the extent that immediate consideration best serves the interests of justice;

(ii) where the defendant asserts multiple ineffective assistance claims, shows good cause for direct review of those claims, and

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expressly waives his entitlement to PCRA review before the trial court; and

(iii) where the defendant is statutorily precluded from obtaining subsequent PCRA review.

Commonwealth v. Stefanowicz, 315 A.3d 162, 172 (Pa.Super. 2024)

(cleaned up).

Easley asserts the length of his sentence constitutes good cause for

unitary review. Regarding “good cause,” we have stated that a defendant may

assert good cause based on the short length of his sentence, in which case

“the trial court is obligated to pay particular attention to the length of the

sentence imposed and the effect the length of the sentence will have on the

defendant’s realistic prospect to be able to avail himself of collateral review.”

Commonwealth v. Bieber, 283 A.3d 866, 874 (Pa.Super. 2022) (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted). Whether to allow unitary review is

within the discretion of the trial court. Commonwealth v. Delgros, 183 A.3d

352, 360 (Pa. 2018).

Here, the trial court found Easley failed to present good cause to justify

unitary review, because the length of his sentence would not foreclose his

ability to raise ineffectiveness claims on collateral review via a PCRA petition.

This was not an abuse of discretion. Easley is serving a 10-year sentence

imposed in June 2024. The time remaining on Easley’s sentence is not so short

as to afford him no realistic chance of seeking PCRA relief. See Bieber, 283

A.3d at 875.

Judgment of sentence affirmed.

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DATE: 11/5/2025

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