Com. v. Rega

• Decision Date: 17 October 2007
• Citation: 933 A.2d 997
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Robert Gene REGA, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

933 A.2d 997

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Robert Gene REGA, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued December 5, 2006.

Decided October 17, 2007.

Clifford D. Schenkemeyer, Jr., Esq., Robbie Martin Taylor, Esq., Taylor Law Firm (The), for Robert Gene Rega.

Jeffrey D. Burkett, Esq., Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, Jennifer Anne Buck, Esq., Amy Zapp, Esq., PA Office of Attorney General, for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

BEFORE: CAPPY, C.J., and CASTILLE, SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER and BALDWIN, JJ.

OPINION

Justice BAER.

This is a direct appeal from a sentence of death imposed by the Jefferson County Court of Common Pleas following Appellant Robert Gene Rega's conviction for the first-degree murder of Christopher Lauth and the related crimes of robbery, burglary, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, aggravated assault, criminal mischief, unlawful restraint, theft by receiving stolen property, and criminal conspiracy.¹ For the following reasons, we affirm.

I. Background

On December 21, 2000, at about 9:00 in the evening, Appellant and his friends Stanford (Stan) and Susan Jones (Susan), who were married, and Shawn Bair (Bair) were at Appellant's trailer residence bemoaning their lack of funds for Christmas presents for their children. Appellant devised a plan to rob the Gateway Lodge, where both he and Bair previously worked as night watchmen. Due to their prior employment, Appellant and Bair were familiar with the Gateway Lodge and knew that there was a safe and an ATM machine, both of which contained substantial amounts of cash. The participants intended that during the robbery, nobody would get hurt.

Appellant and Bair believed that the current night watchman, Christopher Lauth, would be inside the building when they arrived, either doing laundry or rounds. Once they gained entry to the building, the group planned to take control of Lauth and direct him to call Ann Lipford, assistant innkeeper and the daughter of the owners of the Gateway Lodge, who resided on the premises, to obtain the key or pin number in order to open the ATM machine. The group further planned to take the safe and open it upon returning to Appellant's trailer. After completing the robbery, they planed to place Lipford and Lauth inside the kitchen's walk-in freezer with a sign indicating they were in there.

Although Appellant and Stan were ready and willing to carry out this plan, Bair needed further convincing. Due to Bair's reluctance, Appellant instructed Bair to contact Raymond Fishell (Fishell) to help. Bair called Fishell, who was at a bar in Punxsutawney. Stan, Susan, and Bair drove to the bar to retrieve Fishell and include him in the plan. When they found Fishell at the bar, he was already quite intoxicated. The group tried to sober him up with coffee.

After Stan, Susan and Bair returned to Appellant's trailer with Fishell, Appellant told Bair that if he participated in the robbery as a driver and look-out, he could still split the money with the rest of them. This convinced Bair, who agreed to participate. At Appellant's direction, Stan armed Fishell with a butcher knife. Appellant armed himself with a gun, concealed in his pants.² Susan agreed to stay behind and babysit Appellant's children, who were already in bed. The group, consisting of Appellant, Stan, Bair, and Fishell pulled stockings over their faces, put on gloves, and departed for the Gateway Lodge with Stan driving his distinctive 1989 Buick Century, which was badly in need of bodywork.

From the moment they arrived at the Gateway Lodge the plan went awry. Upon driving to the parking area, the group noticed that Lauth was not inside as expected, but outside, and, in fact, had watched them drive up, park, and turn off the lights. Because Stan's car was so distinctive and Lauth had watched them pull into the parking lot, the group immediately began to panic. Appellant decided that everyone should jump out of the car at the same time, because Lauth was approaching the car. All four doors opened at once, and everyone jumped out. Bair walked around the car and got into the driver's seat. Appellant, with his gun drawn, Stan and Fishell approached Lauth and took him into the kitchen of the Gateway Lodge. Bair stayed behind in the car, with a two-way radio to keep in contact with Appellant.

Once they had Lauth in the building, Fishell held Lauth at knifepoint while they directed him to call Ann Lipford, the owners' daughter living at the Gateway Lodge, as planned. Lauth's first attempt to call Lipford resulted in a wrong number to Stacy Oakes, a stranger to the parties who eventually testified at trial.³ Lauth asked Oakes where Ann was, and hung up once he realized he dialed the wrong number. Fishell threatened Lauth not to make any more mistakes. Lauth tried again, this time dialing the correct number, but Lipford did not answer. Instead, Lauth reached her answering machine, and his voice was captured on her answering machine at 1:48 a.m. Appellant then used the two-way radio to ask Bair whether he saw Lipford's car in the parking lot. Bair looked around, and informed Appellant that he did not see her car. Realizing that she was not home, the group gained entry to her apartment and ransacked it, apparently looking for the key to the ATM.

The group proceeded to the room where the safe was kept. After locating it under a desk, Stan and Fishell began to move it while Appellant held Lauth at gunpoint. Appellant radioed Bair to tell him to pull Stan's Buick up so they could load the safe into it. As Fishell and Stan carried the safe to the car, Appellant fired several shots at the ATM in an unsuccessful attempt to break into it. The group also cut various wires in the office because they were concerned about police being notified somehow.

After failing to gain entry to the ATM and then cutting the wires in the office, Appellant moved Lauth into the kitchen at gunpoint. Fishell and Stan joined Appellant and Lauth. Upon Fishell and Stan's appearance in the kitchen, Appellant hit Lauth with his flashlight and then handed it to Fishell, instructing him to hit the victim. Fishell hit Lauth one time. Appellant then fired the gun at the freezer door in an attempt to open it. To escape any potential ricochet, Fishell returned to the car. At the same time, Stan found Lauth's vehicle in the parking lot and drove it over the hillside down an embankment, and then he returned to the car. Bair was still in the car, acting as a lookout. While Stan, Fishell, and Bair waited in the car, they heard a gunshot, a scream, a gurgling sound, and then another couple of gun shots. Appellant ran out of the building, got into the car, and directed Bair to drive.

While in the car, Appellant asked Stan whether he thought Appellant did the right thing. Stan indicated that he did. On the way back to Appellant's trailer, Appellant stated "I think I killed him." After arriving at Appellant's trailer, they used a grinder to open the safe. The group, along with Susan, separated the items from the safe and split the money four ways, about $5000 each. Appellant then instructed the group to put all credit cards and papers they found in the safe back into it, and took it to the car. They stuffed a kerosene soaked blanket into the safe, lit it on fire, and dumped it down an embankment. They then drove Fishell to his house. The group, minus Fishell, returned to Appellant's trailer, where Bair stayed for the night. Stan and his wife returned to their own home. Before Stan and Susan left, Appellant handed them a bullet and told them it would be for them if they opened their mouths. Later in the day on December 22, 2000, Appellant gave his gun, wrapped inside a bag, to Stan. Stan put the wrapped gun in his car, drove away with his wife Susan, and threw the gun into a creek.

Employees of the Gateway Lodge arrived for work at 6:30 on the morning of December 22, 2000, and discovered Lauth's body. The employees also saw that the office and kitchen were in total disarray, with papers everywhere and tables overturned. The ATM had bullet holes in it.

When police arrived on the scene, they discovered that the safe was gone, and, because the safe was very heavy, surmised that a group of individuals were involved. Police also recovered Lauth's flashlight, which had blood on it. Because the group had not entered any part of the Gateway Lodge that did not need to be entered to complete the crime, and because Lipford's apartment had been ransacked as if the perpetrators had been looking for something, the investigators believed that they were employees of the Lodge.

At the time the crime was committed, Appellant's girlfriend was a Gateway Lodge employee. She kept Appellant abreast of the police investigation, at one point informing Appellant that the police were taking pictures of employees' shoes. Responding to this information, Appellant instructed everyone involved in the robbery and shooting to dispose of their shoes.

The police investigation soon focused on Appellant because of his past employment as the night watchman. The police conducted interviews with people close to Appellant, including Bair, Stan, and Stan's wife, Susan. When the police interviewed Susan, she informed police that Appellant had told her that he had to kill Lauth because someone's name had been mentioned during the robbery, potentially revealing their identity to the victim.⁴

While police were investigating the crimes, Appellant approached Michael Sharp and asked him to provide an alibi. Sharp shared a criminal history with Appellant, regarding a van the two had stolen together. The theft of the van occurred two weeks prior to the Lauth murder, and resulted in charges brought against Sharp for receiving stolen property and criminal conspiracy to receive stolen property. Appellant instructed Sharp to tell anyone who asked that Sharp was with Appellant at Appellant's trailer on the night of December 21, 2000...