LEISURE, DAVID
General InformationDOB: June 25, 1950
Race: White
Gender: Male
Crime and Trial
County of conviction: St. Louis City
Number of counts: One
Race of victim: White
Gender of victim: Male
Date of crime: September 17, 1980
Date of sentencing: March 29, 1989
Date of execution: September 1, 1999
Legal status:
Trial Counsel:
Alan Zvibleman
Last counsel of record:
Barry A. Short
Lewis & Rice
500 N. Broadway, Suite 2000
St. Louis, MO 63102
314-444-7600
Last judicial decision:
--Unpublished order by Eighth Circuit granting State's petition for writ of mandamus and vacating stay entered by U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey (Eighth Circuit Case No. 99-3315; order dated September 1, 1999)
Reported Opinions:
--Conviction and sentence affirmed on direct appeal by State v. Leisure, 749 S.W.2d 366 (Mo. banc 1988).
--Denial of post-conviction relief affirmed by Leisure v. State, 828 S.W.2d 872 (Mo. banc), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 923 (1992).
--Habeas corpus denied by Leisure v. Bowersox, 990 F. Supp. 769 (E.D. Mo. 1998).
--Habeas corpus (sought under U.S. Supreme Court's original jurisdiction) and application for stay of execution denied by In re Leisure, 527 U.S. 1059 (1999).
Significant legal issues:
--trial counsel's refusal to allow the defendant to testify on his own behalf (claim procedurally barred in state courts)
--refusal of trial court to transfer venue in light of extensive pretrial publicity
--penalty phase instruction requiring jury to find mitigating circumstances unanimously, in violation of Mills v. Maryland
--prosecutor's improper argument that defense counsel was trying to make criminals of the jury by encouraging them to convict Mr. Leisure of second degree murder rather than capital murder
--questions surrounding the relative culpability of Mr. Leisure and his two accomplices (in a federal racketeering trial involving this murder as one of the predicate offenses, the prosecution took the position that Mr. Leisure was the most culpable of the three; in state court, by contrast, Mr. Leisure was alleged to have actually placed the car bomb that killed the victim)