Mafia Hit Man Executed in Missouri
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Mafia Hit Man Executed in Missouri
By JEFFREY McMURRAY
POTOSI, Mo. (AP) - Mob hit man David Leisure was executed early
Wednesday for
the car bomb slaying of an underworld boss, becoming the first organized
crime
figure put to death in the United States since Louis ``Lepke'' Buchalter
in
1944.
Leisure, 49, was convicted of killing James Michaels Sr., whose slaying
in 1980
set off a deadly feud between the Leisure and Michaels crime families of
St.
Louis. Two cousins of Leisure were sentenced to life in prison for their
part
in the killing.
The lethal injection was delayed more than two hours while the U.S.
Supreme
Court considered and rejected last-minute appeals arguing that he should
be
spared because he was mentally retarded.
Lawyers said his IQ measured in the low 70s, he wasn't toilet trained
until age
8, he dropped out of school in the third grade, and he used alcohol and
drugs
as a child.
State Attorney General Jay Nixon contended the punishment fit the crime.
``The one thing uncontroverted is that this guy placed a bomb that not
only
killed one person but put at risk hundreds of others on a major freeway
in St.
Louis,'' Nixon said.
Leisure was the first organized crime figure put to death in the United
States
since Buchalter, an assassin for Murder Inc., went to the electric chair
at New
York's Sing Sing prison, said Clark Hall, former supervisor of the FBI's
organized crime section.
Hall called the St. Louis crime families ``also-rans'' compared with
larger,
more notorious families in other major cities. But the battle between
the
Leisures and Michaelses terrorized the city for more than a decade.
Joining the defense in seeking clemency for Leisure was Michaels'
grandson
James Michaels III, who had urged Gov. Mel Carnahan to end the cycle of
killing
by sparing Leisure.
``The Michaels family and the Leisure family have experienced enough
grief for
one lifetime,'' the younger Michaels wrote.
AP-NY-09-01-99
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The following appears courtesy of the 9/1/99 online edition of The St.
Louis
Post-Dispatch newspaper:
Leisure is executed after Supreme Court, Carnahan refuse to intervene
By Kim Bell
Of the Post-Dispatch
POTOSI, Mo. - David R. Leisure, condemned for the mob-related car
bombings that
rocked St. Louis in the early 1980s, went to his death quietly today in
the
execution chamber of the Potosi Correctional Center.
Strapped to a gurney, Leisure looked haggard and unshaven. He mouthed a
few
words of goodbye to his sister watching from a viewing box as the first
in a
series of lethal drugs raced into his veins. A priest hugged the sister,
then
said a prayer.
Leisure's final words, according to prison officials, were: "I am an
innocent
man. The lawyer who represented me was on drugs. Tell my children,
family and
relatives I love them.''
Leisure's chest heaved, he blinked his eyes and coughed hard. Then, he
fell
silent. He was pronounced dead at 2:17 a.m., four minutes after the
procedure
began.
The execution had been delayed two hours while the U.S. Supreme Court
considered a last-ditch appeal, in which Leisure's court-appointed
appeals team
argued he was retarded and not mentally fit for execution. The high
court
turned down the request at 1:10 a.m.
Leisure, 49, became the first organized-crime figure in the United
States to be
executed since 1944.
Security was tighter than ever outside the prison. Twice the normal
number of
highway patrol troopers, sheriffs deputies and a special squad of prison
guards
patrolled the grounds. Every vehicle that drove onto the prison lot,
including
those driven by state witnesses, was searched for explosives by
specially
trained dogs.
In 1987, a St. Louis jury recommended that Leisure be put to death for
planting
the car bomb in 1980 that killed underworld leader James A. Michaels
Sr., the
reputed head of St. Louis' Syrian crime faction. The Leisure family
wanted
control over Laborers Local 110.
Leisure's attorneys painted him as a follower, someone who took orders
from his
older cousins, Anthony and Paul Leisure. Anthony Leisure detonated the
bomb;
Paul Leisure called the shots.
David Leisure, with a seventh-grade education, was far from Hollywood's
glitzy
idea of an organized-crime figure. He worked at a towing and salvage
yard. He
had an IQ of 74 and functioned like a 10- or 12-year-old boy, two
psychologists
said. One of his appeals lawyers, John William Simon, said: "David
Leisure is
to organized crime what a mom-and-pop ice cream store is to corporate
America.''
But federal prosecutor Thomas Dittmeier, who brought down the Leisure
gang,
said David was a hands-on participant who deserved to die.
While Leisure was one of about 10 people tied to the car bombings of the
1980s,
only he was sentenced to death. Paul and Anthony Leisure, whom the
federal
government said were more culpable in the killings, received life in
prison
after separate trials.
In David Leisure's final statements today, the lawyer he claimed was on
drugs
was actually a law student who was part of his defense team at trial.
That law
student, Gerald Bassett, admitted recently in an affidavit that he was
heavily
involved in heroin and cocain use in the 1970s and 1980s.
On Tuesday, Leisure had a short-lived victory when U.S. District Judge
Nanette
Laughrey of Kansas City issued a stay of execution until a hearing is
held on
Leisure's competency. Her ruling came down about 6 p.m.
"That sounds good,'' Leisure told a reporter, in an interview from his
holding
cell. "But they can take that away from me?''
Three hours later, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed
Laughrey,
saying the execution should go forward. Leisure's attorneys immediately
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. As that court considered the appeal,
Leisure's scheduled 12:01 a.m. was postponed. Shortly after the Supreme
Court
denied Leisure's appeal at 1:10 a.m., Gov. Mel Carnahan announced that
he would
not stand in the way of the execution either.
Leisure spent Tuesday visiting with relatives, including his 4-year-old
grandson. He took a sedative about 7:30 p.m., and ate a meal that
consisted of
steak, baked potato, salad and apple pie with vanilla ice cream.
On Sept. 17, 1980, David Leisure crawled beneath Michaels' car and
planted a
remote-controlled bomb as the car was parked outside St. Raymond's
Maronite
Church. Michaels was inside eating lunch.
Leisure was present when his cousin, Anthony Leisure, detonated the bomb
on
I-55 near the Reavis Barracks Road exit. Michaels' car was scattered
over a
200-foot radius by the force of the explosion. Michaels' body was
dismembered,
and part of it was hurled against a passing car.
Micheals' grandson, James A. Michaels III, recently asked Gov. Mel
Carnahan to
spare Leisure's life.
G. Robert Blakey, author of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations statute and a law professor at Notre Dame, said the
Leisure gang
was brought down by techniques like wiretapping.
"Without wiretapping, without investigative grand juries, without a
witness
protection program, organized crime was above the law in Missouri,''
Blakey
said. "It wasn't until the federal authorities, with those techniques,
came
into St. Louis and did the investigations that the power of organized
crime was
broken.''