There is something rotten in Adams County.

Attorney General Phil Weiser’s handling of the criminal prosecutions in the death of Elijah McClain has moved from mismanagement to ethically questionable, unfair and an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.

The Change.org petition-inspired assignment of the case by Gov. Jared Polis to Weiser; the unusually long delay in charges; the hand-picked, expensive and controversial expert witnesses; the out-of-state civil lawyers appointed by Weiser as prosecutors; the failure to secure a conviction to even one of the lead counts against any of the police officers he charged with the death of Elijah McClain – all pale in comparison to what has taken place and what is taking place right now.

The foundational principle of public prosecution in America is – and must be – the pursuit of justice based on a search for the truth. Yet, that is not what is happening in Adams County District Court. Weiser’s team has presented contradictory theories of guilt before three separate juries in a flailing attempt to gain convictions to satisfy political agendas and assuage community passions.

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Weiser’s controversial decision to prosecute the Aurora police officers is contrary to the thin evidence available as to McClain’s cause of death, which points to the paramedic’s administration of ketamine. Here, the dormant McClain case was only charged after the passions of the George Floyd murder. Choosing not to prosecute the white police officers associated with the death of a young Black man was never an option for Weiser, a Democrat AG with zero criminal justice experience and unlimited political ambitions.

Weiser had to overcome the compelling defense by the police the paramedics killed McClain with their syringe full of too much ketamine, which is what the medical experts say happened. The only way to do that was to transform the paramedics into the unwitting victims of the police.

That is exactly what Weiser’s lawyers argued to the jury against Officers Roedema and Rosenblatt, claiming they, “…Encouraged the paramedics to sedate Mr. McClain,” and “they didn’t tell the paramedics that Mr. McClain was having difficulty breathing. They didn’t tell them that he had vomited into his own mask.  If they had said those things the paramedics would have treated this differently… And had these police officers followed their training, the paramedics would have known what to do… The paramedics were misled by the (police) here because buzz words were used and the symptoms that Mr. McClain was suffering from were not disclosed.”

In other words, the AG’s lawyers were arguing the poor, uninformed and misled paramedics cannot be blamed for what the cops withheld from them. Weiser’s attorneys emphasized the police – not the paramedics – killed McClain, “…Because (the police( do nothing with that information that Elijah can’t breathe, nobody protects his airway. That’s why he dies.”

After the disappointing jury verdicts against Roedema and Rosenblatt, Weiser’s team shifted to an argument that incorporated ketamine as a cause of death, but still blamed the police – now, Officer Woodyard: “Why are the paramedics administering ketamine? Because nobody told them Elijah McClain can’t breathe…they got bad information (from the police)… nobody, (Officer Woodyard) especially, doesn’t cue them in to the ‘I can’t breathe’ statements.”

Woodyard argued the paramedics’ ketamine killed McClain. The jury agreed and acquitted Woodyard.

Ouch. With only one trial left to convict somebody – the paramedics, this time – of manslaughter, Weiser’s team did more than adjust their strategy; they turned it on its head. They brazenly argued for the existence of the exact opposite facts and theory of guilt.

This past Wednesday, Weiser’s solicitor general gave the opening statement in what appears to be her first-ever criminal trial. Contrary to what the AG’s office had told juries only weeks before, now, the paramedics were the informed but heartless boogeymen responsible for McClain’s death: “(the paramedics) killed Elijah… he would have been better off if they had never come… Sgt. Dale Leonard is going to tell them three times that they have put Elijah into two carotid holds, that he has gone unconscious at least once, and that he has been throwing up… (the paramedics) also know that (McClain) already may be having trouble breathing… because the police are actually telling them to check on his breathing… Sgt. Dale Leonard is gonna be the one to say ‘hey, make sure he can breathe,’… all of these experts… answered… it was the ketamine that killed him… (the paramedics) had medical control of the situation… they were the ones in charge of Elijah.”

The uninformed dupes, encouraged and manipulated by the police into administering killer ketamine, were replaced by trained paramedics who had been given more than enough information – by the police – to make different and life-preserving decisions.

In three decades of trial work, I have never seen anything like this. Contradictory theories and claims of guilt for separate defendants for the same death – exculpating one in one trial and condemning them in the next – is unprecedented. This is not a pursuit for the truth. It is a pursuit of convictions.

Far from a failure of the system, this is an ethical failure of those operating within it. There must be consequences for this abuse of discretion and for giving the public another glaring example of how politics impugns the integrity of our criminal justice system.

George Brauchler is the former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. He also is an Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow at the Common Sense Institute. He hosts “The George Brauchler Show” on 710KNUS Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Follow him on Twitter: @GeorgeBrauchler.