DENVER, CO — A Colorado appeals court has overturned the criminally negligent homicide convictions of two former Aurora paramedics in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a case that drew national attention and renewed scrutiny of how police and medical responders handled the 23-year-old’s arrest.
The ruling, issued Thursday, sends the cases of Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper back to district court for a possible retrial. The court said jurors were not properly guided on the legal standard they were supposed to apply when considering the homicide charge.
McClain died after being restrained by police and sedated with ketamine during a confrontation outside a convenience store in Aurora. His death became one of the most closely watched cases to emerge in the years after George Floyd’s killing.
Court says jurors were misled on negligence standard
The appeals court agreed with Cooper’s lawyers that the trial judge failed to clearly explain what criminal negligence meant after jurors asked for help. Instead of giving a more specific definition, the court said, jurors were told to rely on the common meaning of the words in the instruction…