DENVER (CN) - A former Aurora, Colorado, paramedic asked the Colorado Court of Appeals on Wednesday to overturn a jury's convictions of criminally negligent homicide and assault for his role in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, an unarmed Black man.

"This is the only way the verdict makes sense with the jury instructions," said attorney Christopher Jackson on behalf of former paramedic Peter Cichuniec.

Cichuniec is one of three men ultimately convicted in McClain's death, all of whom have asked the Court of Appeals to overturn their juries' findings.

As a paramedic for Aurora Fire Rescue, Cichuniec responded to a call on Aug. 24, 2019, after police stopped McClain on reports of suspicious activity and placed him in two carotid holds.

Based on responding officers' assessment - that McClain was out of control and on drugs - Cichuniec and firefighter Jeremy Cooper concluded McClain was suffering from "excited delirium." Cooper called for 500 mg of the sedative ketamine, far exceeding the appropriate dose for the 140-pound man. Cichuniec agreed, relaying the order to the ambulance to measure the drug which Cooper administered.

The drug, which is no longer used by Aurora emergency responders, put McClain into cardiac arrest. He never regained consciousness and died several days later in a hospital.

Jackson said it didn't make sense for the jury to convict Cichuniec of criminal assault for unlawful administration of drugs while acquitting his co-defendant, the person who actually administered the drug, of the same offense.

The way Jackson sees it, the jury should have been instructed that Cichuniec's assault conviction was inherently dependent on his co-defendant also being found to have committed a crime, otherwise there wasn't a crime for which Cichuniec could be held complicit in.

"But the instructions for complicity don't say the other person was found guilty, it just says he committed the offense," Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Jones said.

In response, first assistant attorney general Erin Grundy urged to court to take the jury's verdict as is, even if it didn't make sense at first glance.

"We don't try to figure out why the jury decided what it did and we don't overturn it simply because it's confusing," Grundy argued.

Grundy said the two paramedics on trial received different outcomes simply because their cases were different. Grundy pointed out that Cichuniec had testified he suggested increasing the ketamine dose because McClain was agitated, advice that went against one of the state's expert witnesses.

Jones, who was appointed by Colorado's last Republican governor, Bill Owens, questioned how Grundy could ask for a finding of harmless error, when so much of the case was contested.

"To get to harmless error you have to get to the evidence as overwhelming but the evidence wasn't overwhelming, you had experts on both sides," Jones said. "In order to get to overwhelming evidence, you'd have to pick just one side."

Initial investigators cleared Aurora law enforcement and paramedics of wrongdoing in McClain's death. Following the 2020 mass protests of George Floyd's death, however, the Colorado attorney general's office reinvestigated the case of McClain, who had been sober, unarmed and innocent when police stopped him in response to a passerby's vague report of a suspicious person.

In the minutes before the fatal interaction with law enforcement, McClain had been dancing in the street to music playing in his headphones on his way home from purchasing iced tea from a nearby store. Those who knew him say the massage therapist loved animals and playing the violin.

After the jury found Cichuniec guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault, the trial judge sentenced him to five years in prison.

Over three different trials, juries also convicted Aurora Fire Rescue lieutenant Jeremy Cooper and police officer Randy Roedema of criminal charges for their role in McClain's death, while acquitting Aurora Police officers Jason Rosenblatt and Nathan Woodyard.

Colorado Court of Appeals Judges Katherine Lum and Melissa Meirink, who were each appointed by Democratic governor Jared Polis, rounded out the panel. The court did not indicate when or how it would decide the case.

Source: Courthouse News Service