A Recent Case Proves This To Be True
by Charles C. Bonniwell
The Legal Losers: The representation by the law firm of Elkus and Sisson of Randy Roedema (at right), on the same charges as Jason Rosenblatt, resulted in their client being found guilty in the death of Elijah McClain, and then sentenced to four years in jail.
Randy Roedema (left) and Jason Rosenblatt (right)
The Legal Winners: The law firm of Springer and Steinberg used their legal talents to obtain a not guilty on all charges for client Jason Rosenblatt (at left) relating to the death of Elijah McCain.
The prosecutions of the two Aurora police officers that Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser say were responsible for the death of 23-year-old Elijah McClain seems to indicate that your chance of going to jail may depend less on the application of justice than the quality of the criminal defense attorneys you hired to defend you.
McClain, a black American, was walking home from a convenience store in Aurora when he was stopped by Aurora police officers following a suspicious person report. McClain was put in a neck hold, pinned to the ground by police officers, and given an overdose of the sedative ketamine by paramedics.
The applicable District Attorney from Adams County refused to charge anyone with the homicide based on the fact that the coroner could not determine what exactly killed McClain, the choke hold or the overdose of ketamine or both. The killing occurred in 2019 shortly after the police murder of George Floyd which set off riots across the country.
The Colorado murder case went into media hyper drive when Aurora police officers made fun of McClain’s death by picturing a reenactment of the chokehold that killed and the picture of it that was leaked to the press.
The lack of charges in the McClain case resulted in the unusual move by Governor Jared Polis who appointed Col-
orado Attorney Phil Weiser as a special prosecutor to bring charges against the three police officers and the two medics.
Victim: Twenty-three-year-old Elijah McClain was killed in an encounter with the Aurora police while just walking home from a convenience store in August of 2019.
The police officer who put a choke hold on McClain, Jason Rosenblatt, and the officer who held him down, Randy Roedema, were tried together under a myriad of homicide charges claiming the two men acted in concert to kill McClain. Under this legal theory the bad acts of each officer could be held against the other. Thus, logically and legally it was assumed by court observers that either or both men would be found either guilty or both found innocent.
Since Rosenblatt had applied the chokehold, he was deemed the most legally vulnerable of the two defendants. He hired one of Colorado’s premiere law firms, Springer and Steinberg with Harvey Steinberg, famous for representing sports figures in criminal cases, being the lead attorney. He was assisted by Stephen Burnstein.
Rosenblatt in turn hired a smaller and less well-known firm of Elkus and Sisson from Greenwood Village, both principals Donald Sisson and Reid Elkus splitting trial duties.
Attorney General Phil Weiser was a strange pick for a special prosecutor as he had never tried a criminal case in his life and apparently did not believe any lawyer in his Attorney General’s office could handle the very high publicity case. As AG he therefore went, for the first time in Colorado history, to a national law firm of Quinn Emanuel. They brought in top attorneys from Chicago and Los Angeles and luckily for Rosenblatt and Roedema neither lawyer had ever tried a criminal case in their entire legal careers.
At the trial neither defendant testified in his own defense, and the defense called no witnesses. Therefore, in the end, all that mattered were the opening and closing statements of Harvey Steinberg for Rosenblatt, and Sisson and Elkus for Roedema. If your attorney was brilliant the police officer could be a free man, and if he or they were unconvincing prison awaited. In a shock decision the jury found Jason Rosenblatt not guilty on all charges while Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault for which he would be sentenced to 14 months in jail. It was a laboratory experiment on the efficacy of an attorney.
After the verdict Rosenblatt and his family cried and all hugged Steinberg thanking him profusely. The reaction from Roedema and his family was understandably markedly cooler to Sisson and Elkus. McClain’s mother Sheneen McClain appeared to refuse to interact with her son’s attorneys and left the courtroom with her right hand held high.
If you are unfortunate enough to be criminally charged in Colorado this may appear to demonstrate that whether you leave that courtroom a free man or shackled off to prison may depend on which attorneys you select to represent you.