Valentine Harpstrite Case Data
Compiled by Rob Warden
Copyright — 2006, Center on Wrongful Convictions Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University School of Law
Crime date: May 6, 1928
Jurisdiction: St. Clair County, Illinois
Crime: Murder
Related crime(s): None
Age: 24 (born January 9, 1904, in Salisbury, Missouri)
Gender: Male
Race or ethnicity: White
Occupation: Operator of a ’soft-drink parlor? (euphemism for a tavern operated in violation of the Eighteenth Amendment)
Prior record: None
Arrest date: December 4, 1928
Victim: Justus Nungesser
Victim’s gender: Male
Victim’s race: White
Victim’s age: About 65
Victim’s occupation: Farmer
How defendant became a suspect: Implicated by confession of Elmer Linder and Raymond Rensing, who became his co-defendants.
Principal evidence of defendant’s guilt: Testimony of two in-custody informants, George Shelton and Charles Pillow, who claimed to have heard Harpstrite and Rensing talking in the St. Clair County Jail about how they "had killed the old man.? (The confessions of Linder and Rensing, which they recanted and claimed had been beaten out of them, were not admitted into evidence against Harpstrite.)
Principal defense: Harpstrite took the stand and denied involvement in the crime. (He had planned to rely heavily on the fact that Grimmer stated that Nungesser told him the killers were strangers, but Nungesser knew Harpstrite well. The trial judge, Henry G. Miller, held, however, that Grimmer’s claim was hearsay and did not fall within the dying-declaration to the hearsay rule because Nungesser had not known he was dying when he made the statement.)
Type of trial: Jury
Conviction date: May 10, 1929
Convicted of: Murder
Sentence: Life
Appellate record: No appeal
Basis for exoneration: Recantation of jailhouse informants
Legal form of exoneration: Pardon based on innocence by Governor Sam Shapiro
Release date: July 1, 1949
Exoneration date: December 30, 1968
Days of incarceration: 6,417
Prior felony record: None
Post-exoneration felony record: None
Compensation: None
