Colorado appeals court tosses convictions in Elijah McClain case

A Colorado appeals court has wiped out the criminally negligent homicide convictions of two former Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics in the death of Elijah McClain, but it did so on a narrow legal ground that could shape how custodial death cases are tried from here on out. The judges did not say the facts were clean; they said the jury was handed the wrong measuring stick.

McClain was 23 when police stopped him on Aug. 24, 2019, after a 911 call reported a suspicious man wearing a ski mask. He was walking home from a store. Officers restrained him, including a carotid hold, and roughly 10 minutes later paramedics injected him with ketamine. McClain went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and died three days later, on Aug. 27.

The Colorado Court of Appeals ordered new trials for Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec because the trial judge told jurors to judge criminal negligence using a general reasonable-person standard. The appellate panel said that was wrong for emergency medical professionals treating a patient in McClain’s condition. It also said the judge failed to clearly answer jurors’ questions about that standard, a mistake that went to the heart of the homicide counts.

That distinction matters. The prosecution’s theory at trial was that the paramedics crossed a line by sedating a restrained, medically vulnerable man with ketamine, helping trigger a death that a later medical examiner tied to complications from ketamine following forcible restraint. The appeals court’s reasoning did not erase that sequence. Instead, it said the jury had to decide whether Cooper and Cichuniec fell below the heightened professional standard that applies to emergency medical providers, not whether some ordinary person would have done better.

The underlying case had already become one of the most charged in Colorado’s recent criminal history, drawing national attention during the George Floyd protests and fueling Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Colorado prosecutors took over after the local district attorney declined to file charges, and the paramedics were convicted in December 2023.

The ruling leaves Peter Cichuniec’s second-degree assault conviction intact for now, even as the homicide counts go back for retrial. Cichuniec was later sentenced to five years in prison before an Adams County judge reduced that punishment to probation in September 2024. Cooper received four years of probation, 14 months of work release, and 100 hours of community service in April 2024.

After the ruling, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said his office remained committed to defending the convictions and said, “Justice demands it.” Elijah McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, called the reversal “corrupt and cowardly.” The case now returns to the same question the jury was asked before, only this time the court says the standard has to be right.