Commonwealth v. Rorie

1

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. JAMAL TAHIM RORIE Appellant

No. 351 EDA 2023

No. J-A14013-24

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

December 2, 2024

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered October 14, 2022 In the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-09-CR-0000526-2020

BEFORE: LAZARUS, P.J., STABILE, J., and LANE, J.

MEMORANDUM

LAZARUS, P.J.

Jamal Tahim Rorie appeals from the judgment of sentence, imposed in the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County, following his conviction by a jury of robbery-threat of immediate serious bodily injury,^[1] conspiracy (robbery),^[2] burglary-not adapted for overnight accommodation,^[3] conspiracy (burglary),^[4] criminal trespass-entering a structure,^[5] criminal use of a communication facility,^[6] and false imprisonment.^[7] After careful review, we affirm.

The trial court set forth the underlying facts of this case as follows:

A multiple[-]defendant robbery occurred on June 10, 2019, at KVK Technology, Inc. (hereinafter[, KVK Tech]), a business that manufactures drugs, including Oxycodone, in Newtown Bucks County, Pennsylvania. A series of search warrants lodged led to the discovery that [Rorie's] cell phone was in or around the [KVK Tech] property during the June 10 2019[] robbery. His cell phone was also at or around the KVK Tech [p]roperty during a prior burglary and during prior criminal trespasses [there].

On May 27, 2019, from 3:00 a.m. to 3:52 a.m., and 6:18 p.m. to 8:57 p.m., [Rorie] and his girlfriend's [cell] phones were in Newtown, Pennsylvania. On that date, a Holy Family University security officer observed a black Hyundai four-door sedan on Campus Drive in Newtown in the late afternoon or early evening on Memorial Day.

The car parked for about ten minutes. That area of Campus Drive is a road shared only by Holy Family University and KVK Tech. The University was closed and no one was permitted to be on the property without prior approval.

The security officer approached the car. A male was seated in the driver['s] seat and a female was seated in the passenger seat. The security officer had observed [Rorie] using his [cell] phone. The vehicle returned to KVK Tech later that night around 8:27 p.m. In [a] video, [Rorie], wearing a cat shirt and flowered pants, spent over two hours on his phone and wandering around KVK Tech, looking through windows, climbing the steps to the loading dock, trying to access the doors with sticks, and concealing himself and springing away when a security car drove around the back of the property. [Rorie] was charged with crimes stemming from these actions, however, the jury found him not guilty of said charges.

On May 30, 2019, at 12:52 a.m. and [on] May 31, 2019, at 10:39 p.m.[,] both [Rorie] and his girlfriend's phones were again in Newtown [in the vicinity of] KVK Tech.

On May 30, 2019, a video showed a dark car on KVK Tech property and three individuals walking in the back of the property along the windows heading toward the "paint room" (a room in the back of the property [that was] the entry point to KVK Tech for the June 10, 2019[] robbery[]). The internal] KVK [Tech] cameras videotaped two individuals walking through the paint room to the hallway and also captured them walking out of the building carrying brown cardboard boxes. They moved toward an area where a chain-linked fence behind the KVK Tech property was later discovered to be newly [] cut. During that break-in, one of the individuals wore a white hard hat backwards and a white face covering. [Rorie] was also charged [with] these offenses, but the jury found him not guilty.

On June 1, 2019, between 2:16 a.m. and 5:33 a.m., [Rorie's] phone, his girlfriend's phone[,] and a co-conspirator's phone were being used [in the vicinity of] KVK Tech. On that date, three individuals were videotaped traveling to the paint room/loading dock area at KVK Tech and then running behind KVK [Tech] property. These individuals were seen [at] about 2:57 a.m. on a live video feed outside of the property by a KVK Tech security guard, who then called the police.

When Newtown Police Officer Francis Goodwin arrived in the area for the loitering call at KVK Tech, he noticed a suspicious car, a silver sedan, in the BB&T bank parking lot near KVK Tech. The occupants, female driver Lashay Strickland ([whom] evidence [showed] was [Rorie's] girlfriend) and a male passenger[,] Juwan Carter (who[m Rorie] later admitted he knew)[,] told the officer that they were waiting for a friend at Homewood Suites, which was a couple miles away. After the officer was finished investigating the radio call, at KVK Tech (he did not find anyone there), he went to the Homewood Suites to see if the vehicle from the stop at the BB&T bank had traveled there.

On the way [to the Homewood Suites], [Officer Goodwin] noticed three figures emerging from a construction site near the roadway. The individuals quickly turned around and ran. After searching for those three people and not locating them, the officer proceeded to the Homewood Suites and saw the silver sedan with the two occupants in it using their cell phones. He watched them for an hour, [after which] they drove off to Interstate 295. [Rorie] was found not guilty of conspiring to commit criminal trespass on this date.

[Rorie], however, was convicted of most of the offenses occurring on June 10, 2019. On that date, [Rorie's] phone and an unknown phone traveled from Philadelphia to Newtown [around] 2:26 a.m. and made several calls[,] until 3:42 a.m.[,] near KVK Tech.

The most frequent place [Rorie's] phone, his girlfriend's phone, and the other two conspirators' phones were normally used was Philadelphia.

On [June 10, 2019], at around 4:25 a.m., KVK [Tech] security guard Jessica Ringer was working when she saw two people on the security cameras in the loading dock area inside the building. She explained that the building was under construction, and there were mainly boxes and drug labels in the building. Only people who possessed badges were supposed to be in the building. She thought the two people she viewed were employees picking up boxes or contractors working early. Because the two individuals seemed like they were searching for something, she grabbed her radio and went to help them.

She first encountered a taller man wearing a hard hat. She was about to ask him if he needed any help when a man with a black ski mask came out from behind him. She was very scared and knew they were there to rob the place. They took her security walkie-talkie radio, asked if she had a panic button or cell phone, and repeatedly asked where the drugs were, gesturing at the boxes in the room. She told them there were no drugs there, just boxes with drug labels. They pushed her into the back corner of the loading dock office, facing the wall, and told her to "wait 20 minutes. We have to get out." "[I]f you turn around before the 20 minutes are up, we'll shoot you." She was terrified and believed they had firearms.

After police arrived for the robbery call and were investigating the area outside the building, they noticed that a hole had been cut in the black chain-link fence that separated KVK [Tech] from the field behind it; the grass right inside the hole in the fence was matted. A [police] K-9 tracked through the fence and behind the property. A white dust mask was found in the field behind KVK Tech[,] as well as several cardboard boxes with a white label [reading] "KVK Tech, Inc." and [a] blue label [reading] "Oxycodone, Acetaminophen tablets." At least one box was opened. [Rorie] appeared to be wearing a white mask in the still pictures and video.

When police returned to the KVK Tech building, they were shown pallets of boxes that were approximately ten feet off the ground. The plastic wrapping around the boxes had been ripped open and several boxes were missing from the pallets. The boxes were similar to the labeled boxes found in the field.

Detective [Daniel] Bartle collected a white hard hat that had distinctive writing on it (identical to the hard had in the surveillance video he viewed) in the KVK Tech. "paint room[.]" The hard hat had been placed on top of items in the room. The door to the paint room that led outside could close but did not lock; the door could also be pulled open from the outside of the building. A walkie-talkie was found next to the hard hat and tagged as evidence.

After watching the video and seeing that [Rorie] was wearing the white hard hat backwards with the back strap to his forehead, Detective Bartle collected the hard hat as evidence, swabbed the back strap for DNA, and that swab[,] as well as other samples collected[,] were sen[t] to the Pennsylvania State Police [PSP] lab for testing.

Also, after Detective Bartle watched the video of the robbery, the other suspect[,] who was wearing a black hood/ski mask[,] appeared to be on a cell phone for the majority of the time inside the loading dock, in excess of forty (40) minutes. Seach warrants were executed for the nearby cell phone towers. A "target number" associated with [Rorie] and an unidentified coconspirator's] number were linked to an over forty-minute cell phone call near KVK Tech.

[On September 12, 2019, Rorie was interrogated by Northampton Township Detectives Bartle and Christopher Bush. Rorie was first advised of his Miranda^[8] rights, acknowledged and executed a written waiver of those rights, and ultimately agreed to allow Detective Bartle to conduct a buccal swab for DNA purposes.^[9].

Following a jury trial from June 21 to 27, 2022, [Rorie] was found guilty of [the above-mentioned offenses] related to the June 10, 2019 [] break-in to KVK Tech. [Rorie] was found not guilty of other charged burglary,

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