CONVICTED murderer Richard Hamilton appealed his sentence for the 2006 double murder of two Dairy Farmers Association (DFA) executives with the expectation of securing a reduction of his time behind bars.

Instead, the labourer was ordered to serve the time given and was in essence told by the Court of Appeal that he is lucky he did not get the death penalty.

Hamilton, a resident of Old Harbour in St Catherine, was convicted in February 2007 and later sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labour for the March 2002 murder of the DFA’s financial controller David Turner and general manager Fred Anderson.

The sentences were to run concurrently and Hamilton was ordered to spend 40 years behind bars before becoming eligible for parole.

Hamilton had also robbed the men whom he killed at Anderson’s Longville Park home in Clarendon.

He was tried for capital murder — which would have resulted in him being sentenced to death — but was convicted of non-capital murder in the Home Circuit Court.

The convict subsequently filed an appeal through his attorney Dwight Reece, complaining that his sentence was manifestly excessive.

On Wednesday, Reece argued before Justices Karl Harrison, Hilary Phillips and Norma McIntosh for a reduction by 10 years of the stipulated 40 years Hamilton is to serve before he can be placed on parole.

But following Reece’s brief argument, the court rejected Hamilton’s application, noting that the sentence was not manifestly excessive and that it was in line with the crime committed.

The court expressed the view that the case bordered on capital murder due to the fact that Hamilton killed both men during the course of a robbery.