Case Title: Jerman v. Director Dept. of Corrections

Citation: 

Docket Number: 030461

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2004-03-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, and Agee, 
JJ., and Compton, S.J. 
 
TIMOTHY JERMAN 
v.  Record No. 030461  OPINION BY JUSTICE CYNTHIA D. KINSER 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     March 5, 2004 
DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT 
OF CORRECTIONS 
 
UPON A PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS 
 
 
In this petition for writ of habeas corpus filed under 
the Court’s original jurisdiction, we address claims of 
ineffective assistance of counsel with regard to the 
petitioner’s conviction for abduction.  Concluding that 
there is not a reasonable probability that, but for 
counsel’s alleged deficiencies, the outcome of the 
proceeding would have been different, we will dismiss the 
petition. 
PRIOR PROCEEDINGS AND PRESENT HABEAS CLAIMS 
 
Timothy Jerman, the petitioner, was indicted in the 
Circuit Court of Fairfax County for first-degree murder and 
abduction.  A jury convicted him of second-degree murder 
and abduction.  The Court of Appeals of Virginia reversed 
Jerman’s abduction conviction.  Jerman v. Commonwealth, 34 
Va. App. 323, 328, 541 S.E.2d 307, 309 (2001).  However, 
this Court subsequently reversed the judgment of the Court 
of Appeals and reinstated the abduction conviction.  
Commonwealth v. Jerman, 263 Va. 88, 94, 556 S.E.2d 754, 758 
(2002). 
 
Jerman then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus 
pursuant to this Court’s original jurisdiction.  See Code 
§ 17.1-310; Rule 5:7.  By order dated October 8, 2003, this 
Court placed on its privileged docket the following claims 
raised in the petition: 
Claim (2)(C), in which petitioner alleges that he 
was denied effective assistance of counsel when 
counsel failed to raise at trial or on direct appeal 
(1) that the evidence was constitutionally 
insufficient to convict petitioner of abduction; and 
(2) that petitioner “was denied his rights to due 
process, to a fair trial, and to be free from double 
jeopardy when the conviction for abduction was based 
on the restraint inherent from the underlying 
assault.” 
 
 
Claim (2)(D), in which petitioner alleges that he 
was denied effective assistance of counsel when 
“counsel failed to present a jury instruction that the 
restraint inherent in the assault/murder cannot serve 
as the sole basis for a separate abduction 
conviction.”[1] 
 
RELEVANT FACTS 
At trial, the evidence established that Jerman made 
plans with several of his friends, Micah A. Bohn (“Bohn”), 
with whom Jerman was living, Joe Kern (“Joe”) and his 
brother Frank Kern (“Frank”), and Lisa A. Panko (“Panko”), 
                     
1 In the same order, the Court held that the writ 
should not issue as to the other claims raised in Jerman’s 
habeas corpus petition. 
 
 
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to have a party to celebrate the high school graduation of 
Cassie Bohn, Jerman’s girlfriend.  The party was to take 
place at Jerman’s home.  Some of the group decided to 
purchase 100 Ecstasy pills for the party.2 
 
Panko made arrangements to purchase the pills from the 
victim, Justin Rhatigan (“Rhatigan”).  Bohn, Panko, and 
Frank met Rhatigan at an ice cream store where Bohn and 
Rhatigan completed the drug transaction.  According to 
Panko, Rhatigan then “bolted” out of the store.  Before 
leaving the store, Panko and the others discovered that 
Rhatigan had sold them aspirin instead of Ecstasy.  They 
tried to page Rhatigan, but he did not respond. 
After several weeks of trying to contact Rhatigan, 
Panko was finally able to do so through a friend.  Panko 
asked Rhatigan why he had not sold them Ecstasy, and he 
responded that he needed money to repay some people.  In 
the same conversation, Rhatigan supposedly threatened to 
kill Bohn.  Panko and Rhatigan then made plans to “hangout” 
sometime during the upcoming weekend.  Panko told Bohn 
about her conversation with Rhatigan, and Bohn asked her 
where they could all meet so he could get back the money 
that he had paid Rhatigan for the imitation pills. 
                     
2 “Ecstasy” is metholanedioxine, an amphetamine.  See 
Wolfe v. Commonwealth, 265 Va. 193, 203, 576 S.E.2d 471, 
 
3
Panko and Rhatigan subsequently decided to get 
together on Saturday evening, July 10, 1999.  Panko 
informed Rhatigan that one of her friends was coming to her 
house that same night, but Rhatigan did not object.  Panko 
also told Bohn that Rhatigan would probably be at her house 
on that particular Saturday evening and that they could 
confront him there about the money. 
Sometime between 9:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on that 
Saturday, Jerman, Bohn, and Joe drove to Panko’s house in 
Bohn’s van.  From the time they arrived until around 
midnight, Panko paged Rhatigan several times, but he did 
not respond to the pages.  During this same period of time, 
Jerman, Bohn, and Joe decided that, when Rhatigan arrived, 
they would position themselves on each of the three floors 
of the house, with Joe in the basement, Bohn in the kitchen 
on the second floor, and Jerman upstairs on the third 
floor.  Their strategy was to keep Rhatigan from getting 
away if he tried to run.  Panko testified that, at some 
point during this same period of time, Joe brought a 
baseball bat into the house and told the others there to 
hit Rhatigan only in the legs, not in the head. 
Finally, between 12:30 a.m. and 1:00 a.m., Rhatigan 
called Panko in response to her prior pages.  She told him 
                                                             
477, cert. denied, ____ U.S. ____, 124 S.Ct. 566 (2003). 
 
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that several of her friends were at her house and they “all 
wanted to trip.”  Panko arranged to pick Rhatigan up and 
drive him back to her house.  She did not tell Rhatigan her 
true reason for bringing him there, so her friends could 
confront him about the money. 
When Panko returned home with Rhatigan and both walked 
upstairs to the living room, Jerman, Bohn, and Joe emerged 
from their respective positions in the house.  Panko 
testified that the three men grabbed Rhatigan near the 
front door, and then “they went all the way downstairs.”  
Panko heard Bohn ask Rhatigan, “Remember me?”  And, she 
then heard Rhatigan saying, “Oh, stop, stop.”  Panko 
remained in the kitchen. 
 
A minute or two later, Jerman came upstairs and asked 
Panko how to open the gate located in the backyard fence.  
She told him that the gate was “boarded shut” and that 
there was no way to get to the other side of the fence.  A 
13-year-old neighbor, Joseph R. Worsham (“Worsham”), 
observed two people emerge from Panko’s house, carry a 
body-like object through the yard to the fence, and then 
run back into the house without the object.  Worsham also 
saw a third person fixing the curtains inside the house and 
someone running back out to the fence.  Soon thereafter, 
everyone left Panko’s house. 
 
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Testifying on his own behalf, Jerman admitted that he 
knew that Bohn and Panko “had been ripped off” by Rhatigan.  
On the Saturday evening in question, Jerman heard Panko and 
Bohn discussing the fact that Rhatigan might be coming to 
her house and that, if he did, Bohn could get his money 
back from Rhatigan.  Jerman thought there might be an 
altercation if Bohn confronted Rhatigan about the money.  
According to Jerman, Joe brought three baseball bats into 
the house after Panko left to pick up Rhatigan because they 
thought some of Rhatigan’s friends might come back with 
him.  Joe carried one of the baseball bats up to the third 
level of the house where Jerman was sitting.  While Jerman 
denied ever picking up that baseball bat, he acknowledged 
hearing Joe’s statement to hit Rhatigan in the legs, not in 
the head. 
Jerman testified that, after Panko and Rhatigan 
arrived at the house, Jerman first heard the verbal 
exchange between Bohn and Rhatigan and then heard “a bunch 
of racket[; n]o words, just a bunch of commotion.”  Jerman 
claimed that he then ran from the top level of the house to 
the middle level where Panko was standing and on down to 
the basement.  There, he saw Bohn and Joe each holding a 
baseball bat and Rhatigan lying on a couch. 
 
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Continuing, Jerman admitted that Bohn and Joe picked 
up Rhatigan’s body, carried it through the backyard, and 
tossed it over the fence.  He also admitted that he was the 
other person that Worsham had seen running out to the 
fence.  Jerman claimed that he tried to open the fence gate 
so he could determine if Rhatigan was “okay” before 
everyone left Panko’s house.  Jerman acknowledged that, 
when he departed, he knew an unconscious man had been left 
lying on the ground behind the fence. 
Rhatigan’s body was discovered in the early morning 
hours on Sunday.  Rhatigan was taken to a hospital where he 
eventually died.  The cause of death was blunt force trauma 
to his head. 
ANALYSIS 
In this collateral attack on the abduction conviction, 
Jerman has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the 
evidence his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.  
See Green v. Young, 264 Va. 604, 608, 571 S.E.2d 135, 138 
(2002); Nolan v. Peyton, 208 Va. 109, 112, 155 S.E.2d 318, 
321 (1967).  To prevail on the claims, Jerman must satisfy 
both parts of a two-part test established in Strickland v. 
Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984).  Jerman must first 
prove that his counsel’s “performance was deficient,” 
meaning that “counsel made errors so serious that counsel 
 
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was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the 
defendant by the Sixth Amendment.”  Id.  Jerman must next 
show that “the deficient performance prejudiced the 
defense,” that is to say “counsel’s errors were so serious 
as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial.”  Id.  Unless 
Jerman establishes both prongs of the two-part test, his 
claims of ineffective assistance of counsel will fail.  Id. 
 
To resolve Jerman’s claims, we will proceed directly 
to the prejudice prong of the Strickland two-part test.  We 
do so because it is not necessary to determine whether 
counsel’s performance was deficient before deciding whether 
Jerman suffered any prejudice because of the alleged 
deficiencies.  See id. at 697.  The test for determining 
prejudice is whether “there is a reasonable probability 
that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result 
of the proceeding would have been different.”  Id. at 694. 
 
All Jerman’s claims of ineffective assistance of 
counsel turn on his assertion that the abduction conviction 
was based solely on the restraint inherent in the physical 
attack on Rhatigan that led to his death, and that there 
was no evidence of any restraint separate and apart from 
that necessary to carry out the assault.  Thus, he claims 
that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to renew a 
motion to strike on that basis at the close of all the 
 
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evidence and for failing to offer a jury instruction 
stating that the restraint inherent in the assault/murder 
of Rhatigan could not serve as the sole basis for a 
conviction for abduction.3  He also claims that appellate 
counsel was ineffective for failing to raise sufficiency of 
evidence and double jeopardy questions on direct appeal of 
his abduction conviction. 
 
Jerman was convicted of abduction in violation of Code 
§ 18.2-47.  That statute, in relevant part, states that 
“[a]ny person, who, by force, intimidation or deception, 
and without legal justification or excuse, seizes, takes, 
transports, detains or secretes the person of another, with 
the intent to deprive such other person of his personal 
liberty . . . shall be deemed guilty of ‘abduction[.]’ ”  
In Scott v. Commonwealth, 228 Va. 519, 526, 323 S.E.2d 572, 
576 (1984), we held that Code § 18.2-47 changed the common-
law rule requiring proof of asportation in order to sustain 
                     
3 Trial counsel moved to strike at the close of the 
Commonwealth’s evidence.  Counsel argued, among other 
things, that there was no evidence of any restraint 
separate and apart from that inherent in the assault.  
After presenting evidence on behalf of the defense, trial 
counsel did not renew the motion to strike.  In an 
affidavit filed as an exhibit to the respondent’s 
memorandum of law in support of his motion to dismiss the 
habeas petition, trial counsel stated that he did not renew 
the motion to strike at the conclusion of the evidence 
because he “believ[ed] it to be a futile gesture in lieu 
 
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a conviction for abduction.  Now, under the statute, mere 
detention is sufficient, id., and the asportation or 
detention can be accomplished by either force, 
intimidation, or deception.  Code § 18.2-47.  However, when 
one is accused of abduction by detention and another crime 
involving restraint of the victim, both arising out of a 
continuing course of conduct, convictions for separate 
offenses with separate penalties are permitted “only when 
the detention committed in the act of abduction is separate 
and apart from, and not merely incidental to, the restraint 
employed in the commission of the other crime.”  Brown v. 
Commonwealth, 230 Va. 310, 314, 337 S.E.2d 711, 714 (1985). 
Focusing on our decision in Brown, Jerman argues that 
“the charges of abduction and murder grew out of a 
continuing course of conduct, and the detention committed 
in the act of abduction was merely incidental to, not 
separate and apart from, the restraint employed in the 
commission of the assault.”  Jerman’s argument ignores the 
evidence establishing two acts of abduction that clearly 
were not inherent in, but were distinct from, the physical 
attack upon Rhatigan. 
                                                             
[sic] of the evidence that had been introduced during the 
course of the trial.” 
 
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The first abduction was accomplished through 
asportation by deception, which is proscribed by Code 
§ 18.2-47.  Panko picked Rhatigan up and drove him to her 
house on the pretext that some of her friends were there 
and they “all wanted to trip.”  She did not disclose to 
Rhatigan the fact that Jerman, Bohn, and Joe were awaiting 
him with baseball bats.  Jerman, along with the others, 
knew about and participated in the scheme to lure Rhatigan 
to Panko’s house for the purpose of confronting him about 
the money paid for the imitation pills. 
The second abduction occurred when Bohn and Joe 
carried Rhatigan’s body out of the house, through the 
backyard to the fence, and then tossed him over the fence.  
This occurred when Jerman, even by his own testimony, was 
in the basement; he admitted seeing Bohn and Joe pick 
Rhatigan’s body up off the couch.  Jerman also admitted 
that he was the person who ran back out to the fence and 
who asked Panko how to open the gate. 
In both acts of abduction, Jerman acted, at a minimum, 
as a principal in the second degree.4  See Jones v. 
Commonwealth, 208 Va. 370, 372, 157 S.E.2d 907, 909 (1967) 
(“A principal in the second degree, or an aider or abettor 
                     
4 The jury was instructed with regard to the law 
concerning a principal in the second degree. 
 
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as he is sometimes termed, is one who is present, actually 
or constructively, assisting the perpetrator in the 
commission of the crime.”)  Thus, we conclude that the 
evidence was sufficient to convict Jerman of abduction.  
Consequently, under the Strickland prejudice prong, there 
is not a reasonable probability that there would have been 
a different outcome if Jerman’s trial counsel had moved, at 
the close of all the evidence, to strike the evidence on 
the abduction charge.  Such a motion would have been 
without merit. 
We further conclude that there is not a reasonable 
probability that the jury would have acquitted Jerman of 
the abduction charge if trial counsel had requested a jury 
instruction stating that the restraint inherent in the 
assault of Rhatigan could not serve as the sole basis for a 
separate abduction conviction.  The jury in this case was 
instructed that the crime of abduction requires, among 
other things, “[t]hat the defendant by force, intimidation 
or deception did seize, take, transport, detain or hide 
Justin Rhatigan.”  Under that instruction, the evidence in 
this case proved abduction by deception before the assault 
and abduction by force after the assault.  Neither involved 
the restraint or force inherent in the act of murdering 
Rhatigan.  It is that restraint which is the subject of the 
 
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instruction now proposed by Jerman.  Thus, Jerman’s defense 
was not prejudiced by trial counsel’s failure to offer the 
instruction.  See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687. 
Finally, with regard to his claim of ineffective 
assistance of appellate counsel, we again find no prejudice 
under the Strickland test.  Based on the evidence of 
abduction already discussed, there is not a reasonable 
probability that a different result would have been 
obtained on appeal if appellate counsel had challenged the 
sufficiency of that evidence or raised a double jeopardy 
claim.  Moreover, appellate counsel’s performance was not 
deficient under the Strickland test.  Appellate counsel 
could not have successfully challenged Jerman’s abduction 
conviction for lack of evidence because that argument was 
procedurally defaulted when trial counsel failed to renew 
the motion to strike at the close of all the evidence.  See 
Spangler v. Commonwealth, 188 Va. 436, 438, 50 S.E.2d 265, 
266 (1948); Rule 5:25.  Counsel does not render ineffective 
assistance when making a strategic decision to appeal 
certain errors and not to appeal weaker claims.  See Jones 
v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 751 (1983); see also Strickland, 
466 U.S. at 689. 
CONCLUSION 
 
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For these reasons, we conclude that Jerman’s claims of 
ineffective assistance of counsel are without merit.  Thus, 
we will dismiss the petition for writ of habeas corpus. 
Dismissed.