EX-CONVICT Mervin Cameron, who had created history after winning a constitutional challenge against the State for keeping him in custody for almost five years without a trial, was last Friday convicted of two counts of murder. However, he plans to appeal the convictions.

The St Catherine labourer was found guilty of the August 2012 killing of Barrington Davis, then deputy chief of security at Jamaica Post, and his female friend Patricia Lumont-Barnswell by a unanimous verdict from a seven-member jury.

Cameron was also found guilty of charges of robbery with aggravation and kidnapping.

Prosecutors Maxine Jackson and Janek Forbes led evidence during the trial that, in August 2012, Cameron and another man kidnapped the duo from Davis’s home in St Johns Heights, St Catherine.

Two weeks later, their decomposed bodies were found with multiple gunshot wounds in a cane field in Innswood, also in St Catherine.

Cameron and his co-accused Christopher Wilson, who has absconded bail, were arrested and subsequently charged in April 2013.

The two were arrested after an individual, who they had sold Davis’s car to, led the police to them.

However, prior to the murder trial — which was closed to the public — Cameron successfully sued the State last year March after the Constitutional Court, in a 2-1 landmark ruling in Cameron’s favour, declared that his constitutional right to be tried within a reasonable time under section 14 (3) was violated and that he was to be awarded damages.

Cameron, during an assessment hearing, later indicated through his attorney that he was seeking $35 million, but the court postponed a decision on the award, pending the outcome of the murder trial.

“In light of the decision of the majority regarding the remedy for Mr Cameron, and having regard to the possibility that Mr Cameron may be acquitted or convicted, it would not be wise, at this stage, to assess the damages to which he may be entitled. If he is acquitted, then he is in quite good ground to argue that had the matter proceeded in a timely way then his time in custody would have been greatly reduced, and this may open the possibility to an award of damages that is more than nominal.

“On the other hand, if he is convicted of either murder or manslaughter, then it would be necessary to see whether the sentence imposed is such that his being in custody was inevitable, and thus his time in custody in the context of a breach of the reasonable time requirement would not attract more than nominal damages,” the judges had said in the written judgement last September.

However, speaking to the Jamaica Observer yesterday, Cameron’s attorney Hugh Wildman said that he will be appealing his client’s conviction immediately after sentencing, as his client was not given a fair trial.

The attorney, who declined to list the grounds on which he would be appealing, pointed out that the case should not have been put to the jury, and that presiding judge Justice Georgiana Fraser should have upheld his no-case submission.

In the meantime, he said regardless of the outcome, although he is quite confident about the appeal, his client will still be entitled to an award for the breach of his constitutional rights, which he will be dealing with after filing the appeal.

Cameron, who has had three previous convictions for illegal possession of firearm, shooting with intent, and receiving stolen goods, is to be sentenced on June 28.