Convictions Reversed For Paramedics In Elijah McClain Death

In America, even when justice is achieved regarding a high-profile case in which a Black person has died unjustly, it’s justice that can be erased with the stroke of a judge’s pen. The family of 23-year-old massage therapist Elijah McClain knows this all too well, as they had only received a small fraction of what should be considered true justice, and last week, that small fraction was reversed on appeal.

According to ABC News, the two former Aurora, Colorado, paramedics who were convicted in December 2023 of criminally negligent homicide in McClain’s 2019 death successfully got their convictions reversed Thursday, after the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that the jury was “misled” during the original trial, and recommended that the cases for both defendants, Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper, be sent back to the district court for a possible retrial.

As previously reported, Cichuniec and Cooper were convicted of criminally negligent homicide after being accused of administering an excessive amount of ketamine to sedate McClain on Aug. 24, 2019, when Aurora police officers confronted him while he was walking home. Despite being unarmed and posing no clear threat to the officer, McClain was placed in a chokehold and incapacitated. He didn’t survive the stop or the medical care he received and apparently, the appeals judge felt prosecutors did a dishonest job of explaining to jurors why anyone was at fault.

From ABC:

The appeals court ruling upheld Cichuniec’s assault conviction, but reversed the negligent homicide conviction.

Cooper was sentenced in 2024 to a four-year probationary sentence for negligent homicide. Meanwhile, Cichuniec was sentenced to five years in prison with a three-year period of parole for the assault charge and one year to be served concurrently on the negligent homicide charge.

Cichuniec and Cooper separately appealed their convictions.

In Thursday’s ruling, the appeals court agreed with Cooper’s defense team that the lower court “misled” jurors by failing to clarify the standard of care applicable to the charge of criminally negligent homicide after jurors asked the court for a definition.

“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 reads.

And since both defendants were tried together, when Cooper’s conviction was vacated, so was that of Cichuniec, who had already been released from prison early in 2024, after serving just six months of his five-year sentence.

“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 ruling states.

As it stands, the only person who is still legally held somewhat accountable for McClain’s death is former police officer Randy Roedema, who was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault in the third degree, but was only sentenced to just over one year in prison. Two other officers, Jason Rosenblatt and Nathan Woodyard, were found not guilty on charges of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Rosenblatt was also acquitted on charges of assault in the second degree.

A Black man who was unarmed and non-threatening is dead, next to no one is responsible, and even those found responsible are getting slaps on their wrists, released early, and their convictions aren’t withstanding appeals. What kind of “justice” system is that?

“I am not surprised by the denial of true justice for American citizens in the hands of government branches who allow criminal behaviors in their police agencies,” McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, wrote in a statement after the convictions were reversed. “They are corrupt and cowardly.”

The court said in its ruling that the case should be sent back to the district court for a possible retrial, but the track record for this case doesn’t leave a lot of room for optimism that even bare-minimum justice will be served.

RIP, Elijah McClain. Your life mattered, and you deserve better than this.

SEE ALSO:

Paramedic In Elijah McClain Death Quietly Released From Prison After Just 6 Months

Justice For Elijah McClain: Convictions Spark Changes In Procedures For Patients In Police Custody

Convictions Reversed For Colorado Paramedics Involved In Death Of Elijah McClain was originally published on newsone.com