Commonwealth v. McCann

The defendant, who was twenty-three years of age, was convicted of murder in the first degree of a nine year old girl. Her body was found in a wooden chest in an attic room in the house where the defendant lived, shortly after he had attempted to rape her and then had choked her to death. The only defence offered by the defendant at the trial was that he was insane at the time he committed the alleged offence.

The first assignment of error is to the denial of the defendant’s request to see the report made by a police officer who, at the request of the district attorney, had conducted an…