The Colorado Court of Appeals on Thursday reversed the homicide convictions of two former Aurora paramedics charged in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain and ordered new trials.
Paramedic Peter Cichuniec, the senior medical responder on the scene, and Jeremy Cooper, who injected McClain with ketamine, were both convicted of criminally negligent homicide in December 2023.
McClain, a 23-year-old Black massage therapist, died after he was forcibly detained by Aurora police while walking home from a convenience store. After officers claimed McClain was resisting, the paramedics injected him with an overdose of the sedative ketamine.
He went into cardiac arrest while en route to the hospital and died three days later.
On Thursday, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that the lower court failed to properly instruct jurors about the legal standard they should use when considering the criminally negligent homicide charge, according to the court’s published opinion.
The appeals court also said the court should have provided additional guidance after jurors told the court they were unsure how to apply that standard.
“By telling the jurors to apply the ‘common and ordinary meanings’ of the words in the instruction, the court failed to shine any light on the issue and in fact misled the jurors as to the applicable standard of care: The proper standard wasn’t that of a generic reasonable person but of a person in Cooper’s profession under the existing circumstances,” the appeals court wrote in its Cooper decision.
“These errors weren’t harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Cooper and Cichuniec were tried together, in a trial overseen by Adams County District Court Judge Mark Warner, but they filed their appeals separately. Because the appeals court agreed with Cooper’s analysis, the panel said there was not a basis for treating Cichuniec differently.
“The two were tried on identical theories of guilt and the evidence against them was, while not identical, sufficiently similar that we can’t conclude that the errors were harmless as to Cichuniec,” the court wrote in its Cichuniec decision.
Cooper, who had faced up to three years in prison, was sentenced to probation. A judge originally sentenced Cichuniec to five years in prison, but later vacated that sentence after he served 10 months. He was resentenced to four years of probation.
Their convictions sent shockwaves through the ranks of paramedics and medical professionals across the U.S. It thrust their profession into the acrimonious fight over social justice sparked by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
The jury also found Cichuniec guilty of second-degree assault. The Court of Appeals upheld that conviction.
Both paramedics determined that 500 mg of ketamine was the correct dosage to give McClain based on his weight, which Cooper estimated to be 220 pounds and Cichuniec estimated at 187 pounds. McClain actually weighed only 143 pounds.
In June 2020, Gov. Jared Polis directed Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser to investigate McClain’s death and nearly six months later, a grand jury investigation was opened.
In September 2021, a grand jury indicted Cichuniec and Cooper, along with three other Aurora police officers. Former Aurora police officer Randy Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault and former Aurora police officer Jason Rosenblatt was acquitted of all charges in a joint trial, also with Warner presiding.
The third officer indicted in the case, Nathan Woodyard, was also acquitted of all charges in his trial.
Prosecutors argued that the paramedics acted contrary to their medical training and protocols.
On Thursday, Weiser defended bringing the cases to trial and said his office remains committed to defending the convictions through the appeal process.
“A jury convicted two paramedics for the death of Elijah McClain, an innocent Black man who did nothing wrong that tragic night seven years ago,” Weiser said in a statement.
“Bringing these cases to trial was the right thing to do for justice, for Elijah McClain, and for healing in the Aurora community. The attorney general’s office is committed to defending these convictions through the appeals process. Justice demands it.”
Attorneys for Cooper and Cichuniec did not immediately return voicemails or emails requesting comment from The Colorado Sun.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
Type of Story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
