Dunn v. State, 2

• Decision Date: 13 October 1961
• Docket Number: No. 2,2
• Citation: 226 Md. 463,174 A.2d 185
• Parties: Harry Edward DUNN, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 463

226 Md. 463

174 A.2d 185

Harry Edward DUNN, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 2.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Oct. 13, 1961.

Leonard H. Lockhart and Charles M. Huester, Elkton, for appellant.

William J. McCarthy, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., and J. Albert Roney, Jr., State's Atty. for Cecil County, Elkton, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and HAMMOND, PRESCOTT, MARBURY and SYBERT, JJ.

SYBERT, Judge.

The fact that Harry Edward Dunn, Jr., appellant, killed his wife and 18-month-old daughter in the early morning of September 3, 1958, is not disputed. He was tried in the case involving his wife, convicted of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to death. The basic questions raised on this appeal are whether he was legally sane at the time of the commission of the offense, and, if so, whether it amounted to first degree murder.

The circumstances of this tragedy had their setting in a rented farm house in Cecil County in which Dunn had been living with his wife and five children while stationed with the United Station, where Bainbridge Naval Training Station, where he served as Assistant Chief Master at Arms in the galley. The record shows that the marriage between Dunn and his wife in 1949 had followed an alleged feigned pregnancy, and that their life together was not one of complete harmony. Dunn admitted that after the marriage he frequented houses of prostitution while on liberty in various ports. He testified that in June, 1957, when their fifth child was born, he 'had relationship' with the woman acting as baby sitter while his wife was in the hospital. (In several of his psychiatric interviews before the trial he stated he attempted such intercourse but found he was impotent.) In February, 1958, he moved out of his house and slept in quarters made available to him on the base. He gave as his reasons his frequent arguments with his wife, particularly in regard to the matter of a divorce to which he said she refused to consent, and also what he described as her slovenly housekeeping habits and lack of concern with her appearance and that of their children. He testified that he would visit his family on weekends but denied any further marital relationship with his wife.

In May, 1958, Dunn met Virginia Hargrove, a WAVE reservist, while she was taking two-week reserve training at Bainbridge. Both Dunn and Miss Hargrove testified that they became intimate after Miss Hargrove had returned to Ithaca, New York, where she was employed. The couple discussed marriage--Dunn never informing Miss Hargrove that he was already married. He managed to put off the date of the marriage with the excuse that he had first to sell his farm--although he actually owned no farm. Meanwhile his continued efforts to get his wife to agree to a divorce were unsuccessful. He did not disclose to Mrs. Dunn his relationship with Miss Hargrove.

In mid-July Dunn notified his landlord, Sam Plummer, that he was planning to move his family in September to a furnished house he had purchased in Norfolk, Virginia. Subsequently, his wife began selling their furniture piecemeal in anticipation of this move, set for September 3. Actually, Dunn had not purchased a house in Virginia.

On September 2, the day before the supposed move, Dunn, after spending the morning discing a field for his landlord, went to the town of North East to cash an allotment check for his wife. While buying gas at a station, he also purchased a shovel and placed it in the trunk of his car, and admitted at the trial that he told his son who had accompanied him not to tell Mrs. Dunn of this. Dunn returned home, did some additional tasks on the landlord's farm, and while there informed a neighbor he was leaving for Norfolk around midnight. He discouraged his neighbor's offer to visit the Dunns that night in order to see them off.

After resting at home in the early evening Dunn left the house about 10:30 P.M. with the announced purpose of returning to the base in order to make arrangements regarding time off for the move to Virginia. Instead, he stopped at a diner, drank several cups of coffee, and then left to return home about 11:40 with the purpose of talking to his wife about 'this divorce and the filthiness and all.' However, his demands for a divorce were again refused by his wife, and he testified that she laughed at him and suggested he see a doctor, at which point Dunn bludgeoned his wife to death with an automobile jack handle which he had been holding in his hand during the conversation. His 18-month-old daughter in a nearby room began to cry, and after picking up the baby, he then also killed the child with the same instrument. Using the shovel he had purchased the day before, Dunn dug a shallow grave in the field he had disced and placed the bodies therein. He then covered the bodies with quilts, and as he later explained in his statement to the State's Attorney for Cecil County, he did this because 'I felt that I didn't want them to get cold.'

Dunn left a note for his landlord and then drove to New York City, after giving up an intention to commit suicide in the car. After taking a hotel room in New York he did make an unsuccessful attempt to take his own life and was taken into custody by New York police. He made two statements amounting to a confession to a New York detective and another to the Maryland authorities upon his return to this State.

At the request of his counsel Dunn was committed by the court to Spring Grove State Hospital, following his arraignment on September 29, 1958, for determination of his mental status. Dr. Isadore Tuerk, then Superintendent of the hospital, testified that after a number of interviews with Dunn, his staff had 'a great deal of difficulty in arriving at a decision' concerning the mental condition of the accused, and that 'there was uncertainty about him'. The first staff conference concerning Dunn was held at the hospital on March 10, 1959, almost six months after the defendant had been committed to the institution. After interrogation of Dunn at the conference, certain members of the staff concluded that he was insane under the rule followed in Maryland. However, Dr. Jacob Morgenstern, then Director of Correctional Psychiatry for the Department of Mental Hygiene, who was present at the staff conference, disagreed with this conclusion. It was his opinion at that time that Dunn was not psychotic and could distinguish right from wrong both then and at the time of the offense, and he testified that this opinion 'was shared by one of the highly qualified psychiatrists and some of the members [of the staff] who were not qualified' to practice psychiatry.

Several days later Dr. Tuerk reviewed Dunn's hospital records, examined him and concluded that he was 'mentally ill and suffered from schizophrenia'. Apparently due to the conflict, Dr. Tuerk requested an opinion from Dr. Manfred Guttmacher, Chief Medical Officer to the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City. Dr. Guttmacher first had his assistant, Dr. Ainsworth, a psychologist, examine Dunn. On the basis of Dr. Ainsworth's report to him, and his own examination of Dunn, Dr. Guttmacher concluded that the accused was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia both then and at the time of the homicides.

Dunn remained at Spring Grove until January 19, 1960, when he was transferred for a four month period to Bethesda Naval Medical Center for observation and treatment pending possible discharge from the Navy. After extensive review of his case, the staff psychiatrists of this institution concluded that Dunn was not psychotic at that time. Their diagnosis was 'Emotional Instability Reaction, Severe', which was described as a personality disorder and not a mental disease. Whether he had in the past suffered psychotic episodes was not made clear enough in the tests at the naval hospital to warrant a positive statement one way or the other, the report stated.

Some two months, after his return to Spring Grove, on July 12, 1960, Dunn was transferred to Clifton T. Perkins State Hospital, the reason being the discontinuance of the maximum security section at Spring Grove. Dr. Morgenstern had meanwhile become Superintendent of Perkins Hospital and as part of the ordinary admittance procedure, Dunn was presented to the staff for evaluation. The determination was that Dunn was not psychotic at that time, nor on September 3, 1958, the date of the offense.

Dunn was therefore reported to the court by Dr. Morgenstern in September, 1960, as capable of standing trial and as having been sane at the time of the homicides. He was subsequently tried for the murder of his wife in the Circuit Court for Cecil County before a three judge court, sitting without a jury. He pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the commission of the alleged crime. At the conclusion of the trial the verdict was that appellant was sane at the time of the commission of the crime 'beyond any reasonable doubt', and was guilty of murder in the first degree. On the same day, he was sentenced to death.

In his appeal from the judgment and sentence of the trial court, appellant's principal challenge is on the finding of sanity at the time of the homicides. However, he also raised the following contentions: (2) that he was insane during the trial of the case and incompetent to defend himself; (3) that he has been denied due process of law in violation of both the Federal and State Constitutions by being forced to stand trial while insane; (4) that he was not guilty of murder in the first degree; (5) that the record of the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital should not have been admitted into evidence; (6) that Dr. Morgenstern should not have been allowed to read into evidence a lengthy statement contained in the record of the hospital as to reasons why he thought the appellant was not insane; and (7) that the trial court should not have allowed the...