May 2 date for doctors to address Mario Deane defendants’ medical reports

THE CASE against Marvin Orr and Adrian Morgan, the inmates charged with the 2014 murder of Mario Deane, has been set for mention on May 2, at which time the doctors who wrote their psychiatric reports will answer questions from the men’s lawyers.

The date was set when the defendants appeared in the St James Circuit Court yesterday, following the failure of the doctors to appear in court despite subpoenas previously issued for them to attend.

Attorney-at-law Franklin Halliburton, who represents Morgan, told presiding High Court Justice Dale Palmer that the medical practitioners were to have attended court in order to clarify several aspects of the defendants’ previous medical reports ahead of a hearing to determine their fitness to plead.

“The doctors were to have come to answer certain questions in relation to the men’s reports, as we have a number of medical reports in hand that are conflicting. It is after that exercise that I think we’d be in a position to determine how the matter proceeds,” said Halliburton.

As a result, Justice Palmer set the case for continuation on May 2, and remanded Orr and Morgan until that date.

During a sitting of the Circuit Court last September, subpoenas were issued for the doctors to attend court because the defendants’ lawyers did not believe that the reports which had been submitted for their clients adequately addressed specific questions about their mental state.

The allegations are that, on August 3, 2014, Deane was beaten into a coma while he was in custody at the Barnett Street Police Station in Montego Bay for possession of a ganja spliff.

Following the incident, Orr and Morgan, who were also in custody at the Barnett Street lock-up, were arrested and charged along with a third inmate, Damion Cargill. In July 2017, Cargill was judged unfit to answer to the charges or to stand trial and was released into the care of his family.