And if you intend to pursue that path, you might reconsider making a rap video that features the very firearm in question.
From Commonwealth v. Ashford, decided two weeks ago by a Pennsylvania appellate court, in an opinion written by Judge Mary Murray, with Judges Timika Lane and Kate Ford Elliott concurring:
The trial court summarized the evidence presented at Appellant’s jury trial as follows …
On February 11, 2023, Ms. South was carjacked in Reading City, Berks County, Pennsylvania, by three men wearing black balaclavas, with one of them brandishing a handgun fitted with a blue laser sight….
The day before, on February 10, 2023, a video (referred to here as “the video” or “the YouTube video”) was uploaded to the online platform YouTube, depicting the Appellant and two other men in black balaclavas handling and displaying multiple firearms that used blue laser sights, including a purple Glock handgun. The video was admitted into evidence and shown to the jury at trial, though it was played without sound. The video itself is not dated, but the individual appearing in the footage appears to be around the same age as the Appellant at the time of the offense, and is shown wearing the same sweatshirt in which he was later apprehended ten days afterward.
{The video, which forms part of the certified record, remains available on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-IX9rvOflg (last visited Oct. 1, 2026); N.T., 5/15/25, Commonwealth Ex. 1. In several moments of the roughly two-minute clip, the Appellant (1) partially lifts his facial covering, exposing his face; and (2) grips a purple Glock handgun equipped with a blue laser sight. The track accompanying the video features background music produced by a rapper who, according to Appellant, has no connection to him.} …
Approximately ten days later, on February 20, 2023, Officer Redinger of the Northwest Regional Police identified Ms. South’s stolen vehicle while patrolling Mount Joy Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. When Officer Redinger attempted to stop the vehicle using lights and sirens, the car fled. A few minutes later, law enforcement managed to halt the pursuit with spike strips. Four male occupants, including Appellant, emerged and fled on foot in separate directions, two by two.
Sergeant Seth Arnold of the Northwest Regional Police pursued two of the men, including the Appellant, behind a nearby residence. He managed to apprehend the Appellant when the latter tripped and fell near a trampoline located in a backyard.
When Sergeant Arnold retraced the Appellant’s flight path, he spotted a bright blue light shining on the grass near the trampoline. A closer look revealed that the glow came from a purple Glock handgun equipped with a blue laser sight….
Appellant contends that the trial court’s admission of the video was a violation of his right to free expression …
“[T]he government generally lacks the authority to restrict expression based on its message, topic, ideas, or content.” Our Supreme Court has explained that “First Amendment freedoms apply broadly to different types of expression, including art, poetry, film, and music. Such freedoms apply equally to cultured, intellectual expressions and to crude, offensive, or tawdry ones.” …
Here, the trial court concluded that no violation of Appellant’s right to free expression occurred by admitting the video:
Necessarily, to raise a colorable claim under … the First Amendment …, speech itself must somehow be restricted or sanctioned by the government…. [In this case,] Neither the substantive lyrics nor expressive portrayals contained in the YouTube video at issue served as the basis for any of Appellant’s criminal convictions. Saliently, Appellant’s conviction for firearms not to be carried without a license did not stem from the depiction of Appellant displaying a firearm in the undated YouTube video. Rather, it was based on the totality of the circumstances indicating his power and intent to control the firearm in the early morning hours of February 20, 2023. The video was properly admitted solely to introduce its non-expressive aspects. Namely, it was highly probative of the fact that Appellant, having apparently constructively possessed the rare purple Glock with a blue laser sight shortly before the carjacking of Ms. South, was likely to have continued to possess the weapon up to the point at which he discarded it when fleeing from police ten days later. In short, because the artistic expressions contained in the video were not regulated or sanctioned by the Commonwealth in the instant matter, the free speech clauses of neither the federal nor the Pennsylvania Constitution were implicated by the admission of the video at trial.
The trial court’s reasoning is supported by the record, and its legal conclusion is sound. We conclude the trial court did not err in admitting the video, and Appellant’s constitutional right to free expression was not implicated… .
