The Longest Served Prison Sentence In Iowa

Recently a list talking about the longest served prison sentences in the world has gone viral. Many were talking about Charles Foussard who served 70 years. The idea of spending your life in prison is scary. Many started looking at who served the longest time in their state.

Today we will be looking at Iowa.

Obviously, there have been countless multi-life sentence's in America. We are looking at time served for this ranking. The numbers tend to be different depending on where you look so we are using three sources.

The Longest Prison Sentence Served In Iowa

According to the Gazette the longest sentence served is 65 years,

Warren “Jack” Nutter, 84, died the same way he lived most of his life — incarcerated. He spent 65 years in prison for murdering a police officer in Independence in 1956. He was the longest-serving inmate in Iowa history and one of the longest anywhere in the country.

Warren Nutter would pass away in prison after serving 65 years making him the longest serving prisoner in Iowa at this time. It is actually very close to Francis Clifford Smith who actually survived his life sentence. Sources go on to say this about Smith,

Longest-serving prison inmate in the United States whose sentence ended in release. Sentenced to death for the murder of a nightwatchman during a robbery at a yacht club in July 1949, his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1954, only two hours before his scheduled execution.[2] Smith was imprisoned in the Osborn Correctional Institution, but was paroled and moved to a nursing home in July 2020

Looks like Smith only has about 5 years on Nutter when it comes to the final serving numbers. You can learn more here about the longest sentences here.