Com. v. Brown, C., Com. v. Brown, C. No. 1046 EDA 2016

On Jan. 30, 2014, Sharday Williams was robbed of her wallet; Derrick Moye was shot by a second assailant who then fled with the robber. Williams never saw faces and later identified the two by clothing.
Police received a flash description; Officer Lally located Clinton Brown near the scene ~20–30 minutes later with Rasheed Hall and another man. Williams identified Brown as the robber and Hall as the shooter.
Brown’s phone records showed immediate post-shooting calls to a contact linked to Hall; Hall’s residence contained ammunition including .22 rounds; a .22 revolver and a spent casing were found near Brown’s home; Hall’s clothing had gunpowder residue.
Brown verbally admitted grabbing Williams’s wallet during a police interview but denied knowledge Hall had a gun; Brown attempted to procure false alibi testimony from an ex-girlfriend.
Brown was tried on consolidated dockets, convicted of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and sentenced to aggregate consecutive and concurrent terms. He appealed the sufficiency and excessiveness-of-sentence claims.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of identification evidence	Commonwealth: clothing, proximity after crime, phone records, Brown’s verbal admission, flight and consciousness of guilt support ID	Brown: victim never saw faces; ID was based solely on clothing, insufficient for conviction	Court: Evidence (admission, flight, calls, proximity, recovered items) sufficient to establish identity beyond a reasonable doubt
Sufficiency of conspiracy evidence	Commonwealth: calls, joint flight, coordinated post-crime conduct, relation between parties infer agreement	Brown: being together and calling each other shows friendship, not an agreement to commit crime	Court: Circumstantial evidence permitted inference of agreement; conspiracy proven
Sentencing excessiveness (conspiracy to commit aggravated assault)	Brown: sentence excessive; court failed to properly weigh mitigating factors and juvenile-heavy record	Commonwealth: sentence within court discretion; Brown waived some challenges by not raising post-sentence	Court: Brown failed to raise a substantial question (did not cite specific Sentencing Code violation); discretionary-aspect review denied; claim waived for two counts

Commonwealth v. DiStefano, 782 A.2d 574 (Pa. Super. 2001) (standard for reviewing sufficiency of the evidence)
Commonwealth v. Hennigan, 753 A.2d 245 (Pa. Super. 2000) (quotation of sufficiency-review principles)
Commonwealth v. Orr, 38 A.3d 868 (Pa. Super. 2011) (clothing and related circumstances can support identification)
Commonwealth v. Carbone, 574 A.2d 584 (Pa. 1990) (consciousness of guilt evidence admissible to support culpability)
Commonwealth v. Perez, 931 A.2d 703 (Pa. Super. 2007) (factors from which conspiracy can be inferred)
Commonwealth v. Jones, 874 A.2d 108 (Pa. Super. 2005) (circumstances and conduct bearing on conspiracy)
Commonwealth v. Ladamus, 896 A.2d 592 (Pa. Super. 2006) (mitigating-factor argument alone does not raise substantial question for discretionary-sentencing review)
Commonwealth v. Goggins, 748 A.2d 721 (Pa. Super. 2000) (en banc) (what constitutes a substantial question for appellate review of sentencing)