Prisoner who survived eight execution dates dies after 76 years in custody

Francis Clifford Smith, believed to be both the oldest inmate and the longest-serving prisoner in the United States, has died at the age of 101.

Smith, who spent 76 years under sentence and over seven decades behind bars while relentlessly maintaining his innocence, passed away peacefully in his sleep on June 25 at 60 West, a specialized secure nursing facility in Connecticut for justice-involved elderly individuals.

​Smith’s saga began in July 1949, when he was just 25 years old following the fatal shooting of 68-year-old night watchman Grover Hart during an attempted robbery at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Connecticut.

Convicted of first-degree murder in 1950, Smith was sentenced to death.

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However, the case was plagued by deep doubts; key witnesses later recanted their testimony, another prisoner reportedly confessed to the crime, and a police officer who had interrogated Smith, Major Leo Carroll, testified before the Connecticut Board of Pardons that he believed Smith was entirely innocent.

​These severe evidentiary flaws led to an extraordinary sequence of events where Smith received his “last meal” eight separate times, only for his execution to be halted—often at the eleventh hour.

The state finally commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment in 1954, four years after his conviction.

Speaking to reporters in 2023, Smith remained firm about his wrongful conviction until the end of his life, maintaining that he had been kept behind bars on “no evidence at all.”