Dunn v. State

Sybert, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The fact that Harry Edward Dunn, Jr., appellant, killed ⁴⁶⁷ 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 States Navy at 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 ⁴⁶⁸ 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 ⁴⁶⁹ 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 ⁴⁷⁰ 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 ⁴⁷¹ 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 introduction into evidence of the written statements amounting to a confession by the accused to a detective in New York. (1) Counsel for appellant have argued with admirable sincerity, vigor and diligence in seeking to establish the defense of insanity on behalf of their client, a defense which was denied by the trial court on the basis of the evidence presented to it, including the extremely thorough, though conflicting, testimony of five doctors widely experienced in the field of psychiatry.

In evaluating this difficult decision which the trial court made and the ultimate verdict of guilty, we, of course, will not set aside the finding below on the evidence unless that decision was clearly erroneous. Doyal v. State, 226 Md. 31 , 171 A. 2d 470 (1961); Saldiveri v. State, 217 Md. 412 , 143 A. 2d 70 (1958); Maryland Rule 741 c. This rule will be applied where the question of a defendant’s sanity is the issue. Saldiveri v. State, supra.

Plow much weight is to be given to the evidence presented and how great a degree of credibility is to be assigned to the witnesses are questions primarily for the trier of facts to determine, and if it is convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by sufficient evidence, and the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, this Court need not be so convinced in order to sustain the conviction. Brown v. State, 222 Md. 312, 160 A. 2d 95 (1960) ; Doyal v. State, supra. In the instant case, we find no basis upon which to conclude that the decision of the trial court was clearly in error. ⁴⁷² It was the function of the trial court to evaluate the evidence as to the defendant’s sanity. Drs.

Tuerk, Guttmacher and Ainsworth were called to testify by the defense. Drs. Morgenstern and Spaulding (the latter being the psychiatrist at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center) were produced by the State. The first three gave it as their opinion that Dunn was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a psychosis described as consisting of feelings of persecution and a loss of contact with reality, as well as disturbances in thinking, feeling and behaving, an illness often associated with delusional elaborations.

Under such a diagnosis, they felt Dunn could not be held legally responsible for the acts he committed under the M’Naghten rule, adopted as applying in this State in Spencer v. State, 69 Md. 28 , 13 Atl. 809 (1888), and followed ever since. Under that rule the defendant is presumed to be sane if, at the time of the commission of the alleged offense, he has capacity and reason sufficient to enable him to distinguish between right and wrong and understand the nature and consequences of his act as applied to himself. Pointed to as one of the factors supporting the diagnosis of insanity was Dunn’s alleged excessive preoccupation with cleanliness, an obsession which, in the opinion of Dr. Tuerk, he elaborated into psychotic proportions. Dunn’s aversion to filth was given great weight by the defense in explaining his reasons for killing his wife—that she above all others represented to him all that was dirty and evil in the world.

It also was argued strenuously that Dr. Morgenstern, who reported to the court that Dunn was sane at the time of the crime, had made his finding 22 months after the homicides when the accused was transferred to Clifton T. Perkins Hospital, of which Dr. Morgenstern had become Superintendent; that his only prior acquaintance with the defendant was during his attendance at the initial evaluation of Dunn at Spring Grove, six months after the killings. To counter this defense effort was the opinion of the staff of Perkins Hospital and the testimony of Dr. Morgenstern, as well as that of