State v. Jurgens
| Decision Date | 10 September 2016 |
| Docket Number | 113,608 |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
| Parties | State of Kansas, Appellee, v. Dwight Jurgens, Appellant. |
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
Appeal from Reno District Court; Trish Rose, judge.
Carl F.A. Maughan and Sean M.A. Hatfield, of Maughan Law Group LC of Wichita, for appellant.
Thomas R. Stanton, deputy district attorney, Keith E. Schroeder district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, for appellee.
Before Atcheson, P.J., Leben, J., and Hebert, S.J.
Dwight Jurgens, an employee of TNT Bonding in Reno County, was convicted of rape, aggravated human trafficking, and attempted aggravated human trafficking related to three women he had bonded out of jail. Each woman told a slightly different version of the same story at trial: Jurgens bonded her out of jail, took her to a motel or an apartment, and either expressly or implicitly threatened to take her back to jail if she refused his sexual advances. On appeal, Jurgens argues that the evidence at trial wasn't sufficient to support his convictions, that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated, and that the district court should have instructed the jury not to make its decision based on sympathy.
Jurgens' sufficiency argument for the rape conviction is primarily that the jury shouldn't have believed the victim's testimony because she was a drug addict with a criminal history. But juries (or judges when sitting without a jury) not appellate courts, make the call on whether to believe a witness' testimony, and the victim's testimony was sufficient to support Jurgens' rape conviction-it was even corroborated by other evidence. Jurgens also argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his aggravated-human-trafficking convictions because it doesn't show, as the statute requires, that he coerced "employment" from the victims. But the victims testified to the sexual activities that Jurgens asked them to do, and Jurgens provides no convincing argument why sexual activities are not "employment" as that word is used in the aggravated-human-trafficking statute.
Next, Jurgens argues that the time period the State had to bring him to trial should have started when the State first filed a misdemeanor case against him in September 2012 rather than when the State filed this case against him in March 2013. But the charges in this case aren't the same as the charges in the previous case, so the time started running when this case was filed. The time between charging and trial in this case was a year and a half. Jurgens wasn't prejudiced by this delay, given the complexity of the case and the fact that about half of the delay was due to requests and motions made by the defense. Finally, Jurgens argues that the district court should have instructed the jury not to decide the case based on sympathy, but Kansas courts have repeatedly disapproved of the sympathy instruction in criminal cases except in highly unusual circumstances; we do not think a sympathy instruction was required here. Because we have considered each of Jurgens' claims on appeal but have found none that have merit, we affirm the district court's judgment.
Factual and Procedural background
Jurgens was a bonding agent for TNT Bonding in Reno County. Bonding companies help people charged with crimes get released from jail while waiting for trial. According to testimony from two different bonding agents (other than Jurgens), a person charged with a crime being held in jail generally agrees to pay 10% of the total bond (an amount of money set by the court) to the bonding company, sometimes secured by collateral or with a cosigner. In exchange, the bonding company gets that person out of jail and becomes responsible for making sure he or she shows up for court dates; the bonding company can be liable to pay the total bond to the court if the person doesn't show up for court. So as a bonding agent, Jurgens helped people get out of jail, was responsible for supervising them, and could send them back to jail if they violated the terms of the bonding agreement.
Around 2011, Detective Diana Skomal of the Reno County Sheriff's Office began investigating reports that Jurgens was abusing some of the women that he was bonding out of jail and identified four possible victims: N.W., T.S., R.W., and A.D. In September 2012, the State charged Jurgens with two misdemeanor counts of attempting to promote prostitution. On March 15, 2013, the State dismissed that case and filed this one, charging Jurgens with rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, and one count of aggravated human trafficking related to N.W.; one count of aggravated human trafficking related to T.S.; two counts of attempted aggravated human trafficking related to R.W.; and two counts of aggravated human trafficking related to A.D. All four women testified at trial, and because Jurgens challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, we must recount their testimony in some detail.
N.W. testified that she was a drug addict, that she had committed previous crimes of forgery and drug possession, and that she was currently on probation. She also said that she hadn't used drugs in a year and that she hadn't made any deals with the State in exchange for her testimony. N.W. testified that Jurgens had bonded her out of jail at least three times. She said Jurgens had first bonded her out on October 1, 2011, had taken her to a convenience store for cigarettes and soda, and then had driven her to a park and threatened to take her back to jail if she didn't show him her breasts. N.W. said she had shown him her breasts and he had touched them. She testified that Jurgens had bonded her out a second time on February 1, 2012, and that he had gotten upset when she asked to be dropped off at a friend's house, saying that he "doesn't do this stuff for free" and that he wasn't "getting screwed over again." N.W. said that, on this occasion, Jurgens had taken her to the Sunflower Motel and had told her to undress; she had initially thought he was joking, but he had then said he could take her right back to jail. N.W. testified that after she had taken her clothes off, Jurgens removed his clothes. N.W. said that Jurgens had tried to have sex with her but hadn't been able to maintain an erection and instead had put his fingers in her vagina and anus without her consent.
N.W. testified that the third time Jurgens bonded her out of jail had been on May 13, 2012. This time, N.W. said, Jurgens had helped her buy some heroin before taking her to the Trails West Motel. The State introduced a Trails West receipt signed by Jurgens that was dated May 12, the day before he took N.W. to that hotel, and an employee of the Trails West Motel testified that this receipt was a true and accurate record of a room that was rented on May 13, so it appears that Jurgens rented the room the day before he got N.W. out of jail. (The registration card itself isn't included in the record on appeal.) N.W. said that Jurgens had shown her how to use heroin, which she hadn't done before, and that she had gotten high. She said that the heroin had made her "fade[] in and out" of consciousness and that when she woke up, her pants were off, her shirt was pushed up, and Jurgens was on top of her with his fingers in her vagina. She stated that she had been unable to fight back and that Jurgens had had sex with her. Jurgens then left her in the motel room and told her that if she left, his bounty hunter would find her.
Detective Skomal interviewed N.W. on October 17, 2012, and the video of that interview was played for the jury. N.W.'s trial testimony was consistent with her statements to Skomal.
Like N.W., T.S. testcmmitted past crimes, including forgery, theft, making a false information, and conspiracy to possess drugs. At the time of trial, she said she hadn't used drugs in 3 weeks and hadn't made any deals with the State in exchange for her testimony. T.S. testified that she had been in jail in September 2011 and that she had been desperate to get out; she had called Jurgens at least 15 times asking him to post bond. T.S. said that her daughter eventually arranged for Jurgens to bond her out, although T.S. hadn't known the details of what her daughter had promised Jurgens in exchange. Jurgens got T.S. out of jail on September 11, 2011, and drove her to her daughter's apartment. T.S. testified that when they got there, Jurgens had asked her if she understood what was going to happen; she told him that she did understand and that she wasn't doing anything against her will. At trial, T.S. stated that Jurgens hadn't forced her to have sex but that she had felt like she had no other option. T.S. testified that she had first performed oral sex on Jurgens, then they had had sex from behind, and then Jurgens had finished in her mouth. She said that she had spit Jurgens' semen onto a sweatshirt.
T.S.'s brother told the police about what had happened between T.S. and Jurgens. Detective Skomal interviewed T.S. in December 2011, and the video of that interview was played for the jury. The video is consistent with T.S.'s trial testimony. T.S. gave the sweatshirt that she spat on to the police, and they performed DNA testing on it. The forensic expert who tested the sweatshirt testified that it had T.S.'s blood on the sleeve and Jurgens' semen on the hood.
R.W testified that she was a drug addict, had committed crimes of dishonesty, was currently in jail for a parole violation, and hadn't made any deals with the State in exchange for her testimony. She said that Jurgens had bonded her out of jail on September 18, 2012, and had driven her to a convenience store for cigarettes and soda. R.W. said that Jurgens had then driven her to a motel and gotten a room, at which...
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