JAMES CLEMENT

CRYSTAL FALLS — A judge Tuesday denied a new trial for a 72-year-old Crystal Falls man convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the September 2021 death of the elderly man he’d cared for in the home they shared.

An Iron County Circuit Court jury Jan. 19 found James Oliver Clement guilty of homicide-involuntary-manslaughter and lying to a peace officer-violent crime investigation, but not guilty of second-degree murder and a different lying to a peace officer charge.

Testimony in the seven-day trial indicated 92-year-old Ralph Schuirmann, who lived with Clement for six years after previously being in a nursing home, died Sept. 26, 2021, of a brain bleed from blunt force trauma.

Iron County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Mansell said the amount of bruising on Schuirmann’s body led him to launch a homicide investigation after being called to Aspirus Iron River Hospital for an unnatural death.

In Mansell’s bodycam video, Clement can be heard explaining it was difficult to move Schuirmann and he bruised easily. Clement also said in the video that Schuirmann may have hit his head when Clement was trying to get him into a vehicle to bring him to the hospital.

At a motion hearing Tuesday, Clement’s attorney, Daryl Waters, first asked that Iron County Trial Court Judge Donald Powell issue a directed verdict in the case, in which the judge takes the case away from the jury and decides it as a matter of law. It’s usually granted when the judge determines there’s not enough evidence to support a reasonable jury verdict.

Waters told the judge the directed verdict was appropriate because Mansell never informed Clement he was conducting a criminal investigation and jurors received incorrect instructions on the lying to a police officer charges.

But Powell agreed with Iron County Prosecuting Attorney Chad DeRouin that once a search warrant had been executed, Clement could have reasonably assumed a criminal investigation was being done. Powell also said if the defense had issues with the jury instructions, they never presented an alternative during the trial.

Waters then called for a new trial, raising multiple issues that included, once again, legal errors in the jury instructions and a Powell comment at trial that Waters claimed denigrated a witness.

Waters also argued the jury was never told what caused the trauma to Schuirmann, leaving them to come to their own conclusions.

Powell said he told the jury at the trial it was not up to him to decide the credibility of any witness.

Clement will be sentenced at 11 a.m. March 10.

Jim Paul can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 85229, or jpaul@ironmountaindailynews.com.