Pennsylvania v. Knox (majority)
Annotate this CaseAppellant was charged with a possessory weapons offense deriving from the use of a firearm in a broader criminal undertaking, although, factually, another person (Appellant’s brother) actually possessed the weapon during the episode and the defendant himself was unarmed. The weapon offense at issue, “[f]irearms not to be carried without a license,” pertained, inter alia, when an individual carries a concealed firearm on his person without a license. Such permutation, on its face did not apply to unarmed co-perpetrators in a larger criminal undertaking who simply were not “carr[ying] a firearm concealed on or about [their] person.” Nevertheless, the Superior Court’s opinion in this case was that the possessory weapons offense extended to persons who could have been accomplices in the abstract. The Supreme Court found that the Superior Court should have analyzed whether the evidence and reasonable inferences, taken in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as the verdict winner, supported a conclusion that Appellant, acting with the intent to promote or facilitate his brother’s unlicensed carrying of a concealed firearm, solicited his brother to commit such offense or aided, agreed, or attempted to aid his brother in doing so. "In the absence of such a focused examination, the intermediate court’s broader assertion that, as accomplices, Appellant and his brother each were criminally liable for the other’s actions in the abstract is unsustainable."
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