Commonwealth v. Sumpter, Riyaadh

Summary

The Pennsylvania Superior Court held that 18 Pa.C.S. § 6108, as applied to the unlicensed open carrying of a firearm on public streets or public property in Philadelphia, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court concluded that the statute burdens the fundamental right to keep and bear arms and that the geographic disparity between Philadelphia and the rest of Pennsylvania did not satisfy strict scrutiny. The court vacated Riyadh Sumpter’s judgment of sentence.

Holdings

1. The right to keep and bear arms outside the home for self-defense is a fundamental right protected by the Second Amendment and applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Section 6108 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as applied to Appellant because it places Philadelphia residents at a special disadvantage in exercising the fundamental right to keep and bear arms, while unlicensed open carry is lawful elsewhere in Pennsylvania for persons at least eighteen years old.
3. The court did not separately address Appellant's Pennsylvania constitutional claims because the federal Equal Protection Clause was dispositive; under the Supremacy Clause, the same result followed.

Questions Presented

1. Whether 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6108 is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as applied to a person openly carrying an unlicensed firearm on Philadelphia public streets or public property.
2. Whether the right to keep and bear arms outside the home is a fundamental right requiring strict scrutiny of a geographic licensing distinction between Philadelphia and the rest of Pennsylvania.
3. Whether the court should separately decide Appellant's claims under the Pennsylvania Constitution or his direct Second Amendment challenge to the open-carry licensing requirement.

Disposition

vacated