United States v. Kechego, No. 22-2041 (6th Cir. 2024)
Annotate this Case
The case involves Jason Kechego, an inmate at a federal detention center in Michigan, who was convicted of second-degree murder for killing fellow inmate Christian Maire. Kechego appealed against several of the district court's rulings during his trial.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the rulings of the district court. The court held that the district court did not err in refusing to hold a Remmer hearing, a hearing to examine whether the verdict was tainted by external influences. The court also held that the district court did not err in accepting a partial verdict, where the jury unanimously convicted Kechego of second-degree murder, acquitted him of first-degree murder, assault with intent to commit murder, and assault resulting in serious bodily injury, and failed to reach unanimity on conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
The court further held that the district court did not err in refusing to give a voluntary-manslaughter instruction, as there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction on the lesser offense. The court also affirmed the district court's exclusion of Kechego's expert's testimony on retrograde extrapolation, a technique for estimating prior blood-alcohol content based on a later measurement, which was done as a discovery sanction. Finally, the court held that any error in excluding evidence of a phone call that Kechego received two weeks before the killing was harmless.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.