AURORA | Two paramedics convicted in the death of Elijah McClain will be retried after rulings from the Colorado Court of Appeals on Thursday.
The court of appeals agreed with defense lawyers that court procedures in 2024 improperly influenced the jury, warranting a new trial for both paramedics.
In 2019, McClain was walking down the street in Aurora when police responding to a suspicious person report forcibly restrained him and put him in a neck hold. His final words — “I can’t breathe” — foreshadowed those of George Floyd a year later in Minneapolis.
Peter Cichuniec and a fellow paramedic, Jeremy Cooper, were convicted in 2024 of criminally negligent homicide for injecting McClain with ketamine, a powerful sedative ultimately blamed for killing the 23-year-old massage therapist. Cichuniec also was convicted on a more serious charge of second-degree assault for giving a drug without consent or a legitimate medical purpose.
Cichuniec and Cooper both appealed their homicide convictions.
In two separate rulings, the appeals court determined that in both cases the court incorrectly instructed the jury about “the standard of care applicable” and didn’t clarify the standard for the jury. Due to the false instructions and uncertainty, the court reversed the trials and ordered new ones.
The court did not appeal Cichuniec’s conviction for second-degree assault.
“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,” Colorado Attorney General Phil 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.”
Aurora justice advocate Candice Bailey, who accompanied McClain’s mother, Shaneen McClain, during years of courtroom appearances and protest efforts to put police and firefighters on the stand in a demand of accountability, had harsh words for the news today.
“This young man was literally murdered, and the officers that did it pushed it off to the paramedics,” Bailey said. “This is not justice. It is a regurgitation of systems that are inequitable, that do not work for people, and we are watching that in real time. How many more of these situations do we have to suffer through before real change is implemented?”
Cichuniec was originally sentenced to five years in prison, though his sentence was later reduced to four years of probation. Cooper was sentenced to 14 months of work release.
Cichuniec and Cooper both put forth multiple arguments to appeal their convictions, but the appeals court agreed on just one — that the district court didn’t properly inform the jury about which standard of care should be applied when deciding the criminally negligent homicide charges.
The appeals court ruled that the district court should have instructed the jury to reference the reasonable standard of care specifically for a paramedic, not just for any reasonable person.
“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 ruling states.
Following McClain’s death, Gov. Jared Polis appointed Attorney General Phil Weiser as special prosecutor to investigate the incident. Five people were indicted by a grand jury, though former officers Jason Rosenblatt and Nathan Woodyard were acquitted of all charges.
Former officer Randy Roedema was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault and sentenced to 14 months in prison, though he was eligible for work release. Roedema has appealed his conviction as well.
Paramedics in Aurora had been trained to use the drug for the condition in 2018. State officials have since told paramedics to stop using excited delirium as a basis for administering ketamine.
An activist who befriended Sheneen McClain after they met at a protest said the appellate ruling was disappointing, and “one of the most divisive judicial decisions our state has experienced in recent memory.”
“It strikes at the heart of a question that Colorado continues to struggle to answer: When a Black life is taken under circumstances that shock the conscience of the public, what does accountability truly mean?” said MiDian Shofner, CEO of the Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership.