Dunn v. State

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…