Jaggers v. United States

• Decision Date: 02 October 1984
• Docket Number: No. 82-332.,82-332.
• Citation: 482 A.2d 786
• Parties: Gary W. JAGGERS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

482 A.2d 786

Gary W. JAGGERS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 82-332.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued April 16, 1984.

Decided October 2, 1984.

Mark S. Carlin, Public Defender Service, Washington, D.C., for appellant. James Klein and Judith Mroczka, Public Defender Service, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellant.

John M. Facciola, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., with whom Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., and Michael W. Farrell, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before NEWMAN, Chief Judge, PRYOR, Associate Judge, and KERN, Associate Judge, Retired.^*

PER CURIAM:

Gary W. Jaggers appeals his convictions for several crimes against three individuals; first-degree burglary while armed (with intent to steal), first-degree burglary while armed (with intent to assault), and armed robbery as regards victim John Nelson; felony murder (robbery), first-degree burglary while armed (with intent to steal) and robbery as regards victim Burwell Davis; and felony murder (rape), first-degree burglary (with intent to steal, and felony murder (robbery) as regards victim Julia Gambill.¹ He contends that he was deprived of his constitutional rights to compulsory process and due process when the trial court permitted a potential defense witness to exercise his Fifth Amendment privilege not to incriminate himself. He also argues that the trial court abused its discretion by failing to sever the Nelson burglary/armed robbery counts, and that improper closing argument by the government denied him a fair trial. We reject his latter two contentions—severance and improper argument—and remand for further proceedings with respect to the Fifth Amendment privilege.

Jaggers was charged with 49 counts of various crimes against the victims. His pretrial motion to sever was granted in part and his trial involved only those counts relating to four of the ten victims. The crimes considered at trial occurred between November 17, 1980, and December 16, 1980, within a four block area in Southeast Washington, D.C. The youngest of the victims was sixty-four years of age.

Jaggers was acquitted of all charges concerning Marie Schneck, who at the time of her death was eighty-one years old. The acquittal was rendered even though the jury heard evidence that when Jaggers was arrested on January 27, 1981, he made a partial confession in connection with the Marie Schneck case to Detective Thomas J. Kilcullen of the Metropolitan Police Department.

Victim Julia Gambill was sixty-four years old and lived at 227 Oakwood Street, S.E. On the evening of December 12, 1980, she was discovered dead by her son under a pile of clothes in her bedroom. Clothing was wrapped around the lower part of her face as a gag, her hands were tied in front of her, and both of her legs were raised and bent in front of her. She was naked from the waist down. She had visible blood in her nostrils and her mouth, and a severely bruised left eye. The autopsy revealed evidence of multiple injuries to the face and head, consistent with kicks or blows from a fist. The blows to her head fractured her skull and she choked to death due to the gag and the blood in her mouth. Examination of her genitalia rendered findings consistent with intercourse without ejaculation. Appellant's latent fingerprint was found on an envelope in Gambill's apartment. Gambill's son, David, testified at trial that their home was "messy"; that they had three cats; that he was storing auto parts in the house; and that he had a briefcase containing magazines such as "Hustler" and "Penthouse."

Jaggers also confessed to the Gambill assault, telling Detective Kilcullen that his "next crime" was another lady on Oakwood Street. He was sitting in a hallway when she came out to get her mail, and he followed her into her house. When she screamed, he shut the door and struck her across her head with his knuckles, knocking her down onto the living room floor. He then told her to get up and go to the bedroom to get him money. As she did, she began to scream again and he again struck her and she fell to the floor. He ran to the kitchen and found her pocketbook on the top of the refrigerator, taking some $.80 which he found in it. He then pulled some auto parts out of a closet next to the kitchen and ransacked the rest of the apartment. He went back into the bedroom to see if Gambill was still alive. She was breathing heavily as he ran out of the house.

Jagger's reason for going there that day was to get money. He recalled that his victim was "old, gray hair, about 65 year [sic]. She was white, she was fat and dirty." He also recalled that the apartment was dirty, with cats running all over the place. He had tied her feet together with handkerchiefs, her hands with scarfs, gagged her with a scarf, and put a cover over her face so she would not see his face. Jaggers also recalled that there were car parts in the living room and a trunk under the couch with "dirty books" in it. He stayed in the apartment for a while looking at these books.

John Lee Nelson was robbed by appellant on the day Julia Gambill was killed, December 12, 1980. Nelson lived three blocks from Gambill. Around 2:00 p.m. Nelson left his apartment to get his mail from the mailbox in the hallway of his apartment. The hallway was well-lit, and Nelson was wearing his glasses. He said "good morning" to the man who passed him and was opening his mail when a robber, whom he later identified as Jaggers, stuck a knife into his ribs and shoved him into his apartment. Jaggers demanded everything Nelson had or "his guts would come out." He also told Nelson that if he continued to talk, he, Jaggers, would do something to him to make sure Nelson could not see. He then struck Nelson, who threw his hand up in front of him to ward off the blow, but the force of the blow caused him to slip and fall to the floor, breaking his hip.

Jaggers remained in the apartment for eight to ten minutes, kicking Nelson whenever Nelson spoke. He went through the dresser in the bedroom and also went through the hallway, living room, dining room and kitchen of the Nelson apartment. He took $285 from Nelson's wallet on a vanity dresser in the bedroom. Later, Nelson found that his watch and a pocket knife, which were lying on a shelf, were gone. When appellant left the apartment, Mr. Nelson somehow got up, went to the door, and yelled for help from his neighbor. The neighbor ran to help him and then called the police. Mr. Nelson's watch was recovered by police from an apartment adjacent to the one in which Jaggers was arrested.

Jaggers likewise partially confessed to the assault on Nelson, telling Detective Kilcullen that after he had left the lady with the cats (Julia Gambill), he went over to LeBaum Street; there he saw both a white man and a black man, who was the janitor. Jaggers entered an apartment, followed by the white man. He pushed the man down and found in the apartment a wallet with $90 in it; he also found a small pocket knife. He denied that he had pulled a knife on the man and explained that he had gone to this apartment because he had gotten nothing from the lady on Oakwood Street and needed the money.

The body of victim Burwell Davis, eighty years old at the time of his murder, was found on December 16, 1980, lying at the bottom of the basement stairs in his home. His face was covered with a nylon stocking, and his body covered with clothing, sheets, blankets and a towel. His head had been wrapped in a brown shirt, and two neckties had been wrapped tightly around his head to keep the shirt in place. One of the neckties was tied over his eyes and the second was tied across his mouth; an electrical cord was tied around his left wrist. There were multiple injuries to the back of his head, and imprints which appeared to be a footprint. The autopsy disclosed that Davis had died around 8 a.m. and had been struck twenty-five to fifty separate blows. An athletic shoe belonging to Jaggers was determined to have made a shoeprint found in the dust in Mr. Davis' home. A stain of blood on Jaggers' athletic shoe was determined to be from a very old individual with type A blood. Davis had type A blood. Davis' son testified at trial that his father kept change in a small dish and a Sony tape recorder at home and that both were gone when his father's body was discovered.

Jaggers confessed that he had committed another crime around breakfast time in the same block and on the same side of the street as one of the ladies lived (i.e., Gambill or Schneck). He said he had knocked on the door and a man answered. When he asked the man for a glass of water, the man let him in. Jaggers knocked the man down, tied him with a handkerchief and an extension cord which he had ripped off a clock. Jaggers put the man in a living room closet, then "tore the place apart" looking for money. He found $15 in a dresser drawer. When Jaggers ran back downstairs, he dragged Davis out of the closet because Davis was making too much noise; he dragged him into the basement and laid him on the floor. Because Davis was still making too much noise, Jaggers put a handkerchief over his mouth and threw two blankets over him. After going through the house again, ransacking the first floor, appellant ran back downstairs to see if Davis was still alive; he was. Jaggers then cut the cords on Davis' hands and feet, ran back upstairs, and stole two tape recorders. Jaggers recalled that Mr. Davis was about sixty-five years old, five feet nine inches tall and slim. Jaggers was wearing the same clothes he had worn when he robbed the ladies, including his blue and white Nike athletic shoes.

At trial defense counsel argued that the oral and written statements Jaggers gave to Detective Kilcullen after his arrest were not freely and voluntarily given, but were the product of police pressure exerted on an exhausted, terror-stricken young man,²...