A Las Vegas judge on Friday threw out a case against Kirstin Blaise Lobato, who spent more than a decade behind bars for the killing of a homeless man whose penis was cut off. 
 
 Kirstin Lobato, who has long claimed her innocence in a 2001 killing, appears in Regional Justice Center on Wednesday Jan. 04, 2017. The Innocence Project has agreed to take her case. Jeff Scheid/Las Vegas Review-Journal Follow @jeffscheid 
 
 Kirstin Lobato, who has long claimed her innocence in a 2001 killing, appears in Regional Justice Center on Wednesday Jan. 04, 2017. The Innocence Project has agreed to take her case. Jeff Scheid/Las Vegas Review-Journal Follow @jeffscheid 
 
 Kirstin Lobato, left, who has long claimed her innocence in a 2001 killing, talks to her attorney Travis Barrick in Regional Justice Center on Wednesday Jan. 04, 2017. The Innocence Project has agreed to take her case. Jeff Scheid/Las Vegas Review-Journal Follow @jeffscheid 
 
 Kirstin Lobato, left, who has long claimed her innocence in a 2001 killing, talks to her attorney Travis Barrick in Regional Justice Center on Wednesday Jan. 04, 2017. The Innocence Project has agreed to take her case. Jeff Scheid/Las Vegas Review-Journal Follow @jeffscheid 
 
 Kirstin Lobato, then 19, turns toward her family after being sentenced Aug. 28, 2002, to at least 40 years in prison for killing and sexually mutilating a homeless man. Las Vegas Review-Journal file photo 
 
 Kirstin Lobato, then 19, appears in court for sentenced Aug. 28, 2002. Lobato was sentenced to at least 40 years in prison for killing and sexually mutilating a homeless man. Las Vegas Review-Journal file photo 
 
 Kirstin Lobato awaits opening statements May 8, 2002 in her trial on charges of killing and cutting of the penis of a homeless man in Las Vegas in 2001. Las Vegas Review-Journal file photo 
 
 Kirstin Lobato awaits opening statements May 8, 2002 in her trial on charges of killing and cutting of the penis of a homeless man in Las Vegas in 2001. Las Vegas Review-Journal file photo 
 
 Tears stream down the face of Kirstin Lobato, appearing in Clark County District Court Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2001, on charges of murder and severing a man's penis. K.M. Cannon Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
 Convicted killer Kirstin Lobato makes an appearance in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006, for a hearing in connection with the death and mutilation of a homeless man. Lobato has been convicted of manslaughter in connection with the death of Duran Bailey in July 2001 and mutilating his body to include severing his penis. Ronda Churchill Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
 Kirstin Lobato in court. 8-7-01 RJ Photo Gary Thompson||| 
 
 Kirstin Lobato listens to testimony in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, May 14, 2002, during her hearing in connection with the death and mutilation of a homeless man. Lobato allegedly killed Duran Bailey in July 2001 and mutilated his body to include severing his penis. Gary Thompson Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
 Kirstin Lobato makes an appearance in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, July 31, 2001, for her hearing in connection with the death of a man and mutilation. Lobato allegedly killed homeless man Duran Bailey earlier in the month and mutilated his body to include severing his penis. Gary Thompson Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
 Convicted killer Kirsten Lobato appears in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, May 19, 2006, for her retrial in connection with the alleged killing and mutilation of a homeless man. Lobato allegedly killed Duran Bailey in July 2001 and mutilated his body to include severing his penis. Gary Thompson Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
 Convicted killer Kirstin Lobato makes an appearance in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006, for a hearing in connection with the death and mutilation of a homeless man. Lobato has been convicted of manslaughter in connection with the death of Duran Bailey in July 2001 and mutilating his body to include severing his penis. Ronda Churchill Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
 A Las Vegas judge on Friday dismissed the case against Kirstin Blaise Lobato, who spent more than a decade behind bars for the killing of a homeless man whose penis was cut off, after prosecutors declined to proceed with a third trial. 
 
 In a one-page order, Chief Judge Elizabeth Gonazalez ordered the Nevada Department of Corrections to release Lobato, 35. 
 
 Lead defense attorney Vanessa Potkin, director of post-conviction litigation for the New York-based Innocence Project. which fought to overturn her conviction, said prison had a “devastating impact” on Lobato’s life. 
 
 “We’re elated with the dimsissal,” Potkin said. “It brings an end to a nearly 17-year nightmare for Kirstin Lobato and her family.” 
 
 Judge's Order by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd 
 
 Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson declined to comment on the ruling. 
 
 During a court hearing Friday morning, Chief Deputy District Attorney Sandra DiGiacomo pointed out that two juries had previously convicted Lobato in the killing. 
 
 “By the time the third trial could proceed, Lobato would be immediately eligible for parole if convicted,” DiGiacomo said. “Although we fully believe in her guilt, as did the 24 members of our community who found her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, our resources are such that we are electing not to proceed with the third trial of this defendant, particularly considering the more than 15 years she has served in prison.” 
 
 Earlier this year, Las Vegas attorney David Chesnoff, known for representing high-profile criminal defendants, agreed to take on Lobato’s case for free and work with the Innocence Project. 
 
 “I was very proud to work with the Innocence Project and could not be happier than providing freedom to a fellow human being at the new year,” Chesnoff said Friday. “I appreciate the professionalism of the district attorney’s office.” 
 
 Ineffective counsel argued 
 
 Another judge earlier this month granted Lobato’s request for a new trial after finding that ineffective assistance of counsel may have played a role in her conviction in 44-year-old Duran Bailey’s slaying on either July 7 or 8, 2001. 
 
 Time of death was crucial in the case.Bailey’s body was found about 10 p.m. on July 8, and the only evidence as to time of death at trial came from the medical examiner, who said death could have occurred as early as 10 p.m. on July 7. 
 
 There was uncontested evidence that Lobato was in Panaca, her hometown, at midday and early evening on July 8. 
 
 During a lengthy hearing in October, however, four forensic experts for the defense, including a former Clark County medical examiner and a university professor of forensic pathology, testified that Baileylikely died about 9 p.m. on July 8, when Lobato was seen in Panaca. They said they based their testimony based on photos and reports indicating lack of blowfly egg colonization on the homeless man’s body. 
 
 Lobato’s post-trial lawyers said that pointed to her innocence. 
 
 As of early Friday afternoon, it was unclear whether Lobato would be freed this weekend from Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center, where she has served since 2007, even though Gonzalez’s order demanded that Lobato be released “forthwith.” A prison spokeswoman told the Review-Journal that Lobato “could be transported to another location” before being released. 
 
 Voluntary sex conviction 
 
 In 2007, Lobato was found guilty of voluntary sexual conduct between a prisoner and another person, which added another year to her sentence and was expected to be served after she finished serving her time for the killing. 
 
 But Potkin said she would push for Lobato’s immediate release and revisit the prison crime conviction because Lobato “served over 15 years for a crime she did not commit.” 
 
 Lobato filed a petition in May 2010 to challenge the legality of her detention, alleging 79 grounds for relief. The Supreme Court last year ordered an evidentiary hearing on 25 of the claims. 
 
 Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter. ||||| On December 29, more than a decade after she was first sent to prison in Nevada for a murder she did not commit, Kirstin Blaise Lobato saw the charges against her dismissed. “It is the end to her nearly 17-year nightmare,” said Vanessa Potkin, director of post-conviction litigation for the Innocence Project, which took on Lobato’s case. “It’s over.” 
 
 Lobato was twice convicted of the gruesome murder of a 44-year-old homeless man named Duran Bailey, whose body was found behind a dumpster off the Las Vegas Strip just after 10 p.m. on July 8, 2001, covered in a thin layer of trash. Bailey’s teeth had been knocked out and his eyes were bloodied and swollen shut; his carotid artery had been slashed, his rectum stabbed, and his penis amputated. It was found among the trash nearby. 
 
 Despite a crime scene rich with potential evidence, Las Vegas detectives Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle ignored obvious leads and instead focused their investigation on 18-year-old Lobato, based solely on a third-hand rumor. 
 
 Lobato, who was a stranger to Bailey, had an alibi for the day of the crime: She was at home with her parents in the small town of Panaca, nearly three hours northeast of Las Vegas near the Utah state line. Still, detectives and prosecutors insisted that Lobato had been in the city during the early morning hours of July 8, killing Bailey before setting off in her old Pontiac Fiero for the long drive up the unlit, mountainous highway, making it home in time to get cleaned up before being seen around the neighborhood later that morning. 
 
 The state’s theory of the crime fell apart this past October, when Potkin and a team from the Innocence Project presented nearly a week’s worth of testimony from several renowned entomologists and a medical examiner, each of whom demonstrated why the state’s narrative never made any scientific sense. In short, had Bailey been slaughtered in the pre-dawn hours and his body left outside all day in the summer heat, as the state claimed, blowflies — nature’s swift and ubiquitous first responders to scenes of death — would have quickly colonized his remains, leaving visible clusters of eggs in his various wounds. 
 
 Still, the prosecution would not be bowed: At the October hearing, prosecutor Sandra DiGiacomo tried to peddle the notion that flies in Las Vegas behave unlike flies everywhere else in the world. It didn’t work. In a detailed opinion filed December 19, Judge Stefany Miley concluded that the testimony of Lobato’s experts was credible, and had a jury heard such evidence, she might have been acquitted. Miley granted Lobato a new trial. 
 
 That left District Attorney Steven Wolfson with three possibilities: appeal the ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court (a longshot given the court had granted the hearing before Judge Miley based on its determination that Lobato’s alibi evidence was strong); retry the case (another loser option, particularly since Miley’s ruling left the DA without any evidence to try the case again), or dismiss the charges and free Lobato. 
 
 On Friday morning, Wolfson chose option three, and prosecutors went to court to ask that a judge dismiss the charges against Lobato “with prejudice” — meaning the state could never seek to prosecute her again for the crime. 
 
 By Friday afternoon, Potkin said she had spent the day on and off the phone with the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in Las Vegas trying to arrange for Lobato’s immediate release — as was called for in the judge’s order. “The defendant shall be released from the custody of the Nevada Department of Corrections forthwith,” Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez wrote. If Lobato isn’t released on December 29, Potkin said, she will have to remain in prison through New Year’s Day. 
 
 For Michelle Ravell, Lobato’s dedicated advocate, her release can’t come a minute too soon. Ravell said that Lobato, now 35, will live with her while she works to put her life back together. Indeed, Lobato has spent most of her adulthood locked up for a crime she did not commit. “I always knew this was going to happen,” Ravell said. “I just want to go and get her.” ||||| “Despite the strong evidence that Ms. Lobato played no role in this crime, including alibi evidence that she was three hours away from Las Vegas on the day the victim was killed, the police focused exclusively and inexplicably on her as a suspect,” said Vanessa Potkin, Post-Conviction Litigation Director for the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. “As a result, Ms. Lobato has spent all of her young adulthood wrongfully incarcerated for a crime she did not commit. We are grateful that the prosecutor’s office moved expeditiously to dismiss her charges after the vacatur decision, and we hope Ms. Lobato will be released soon.” 
 
 Lobato was just 18 years old when she was charged with the brutal 2001 murder of Duran Bailey, a homeless man in Las Vegas. Lobato, who was tried twice for the crime, has always maintained her innocence. Bailey’s body had been found at around 10 p.m. on July 8, 2001 next to a dumpster in the parking lot of a bank building. He had been brutalized: his eyes were swollen shut; his skull cracked; several of his teeth had been knocked out of his mouth; his carotid artery was cut; and his penis had been removed. 
 
 Lobato grew up in Panaca, Nevada, a small town three hours north of Las Vegas. In late May 2001, two months before Bailey was killed, Lobato was visiting friends in Las Vegas when she was attacked in a motel parking lot by a man who attempted to rape her. Carrying a small knife given to her by her father for her protection, Lobato slashed at the man’s groin area and escaped his grasp. When she drove off, she saw the man on the ground, mobile and apparently crying. In the coming days and weeks, Lobato described this attack to numerous people, making clear that it occurred before July 2001 and stating that she believed she may have cut the man in the groin area before running off to safety. 
 
 On July 20, 2001, nearly two weeks after Bailey’s murder, Las Vegas Metro Police Department detectives received a phone call from a Panaca resident who had heard from another Panaca resident that Lobato had told her that she had cut off a man’s penis in Las Vegas. Based on that attenuated story alone, detectives immediately drove the three hours to Panaca from Las Vegas. Upon arriving at Lobato’s family home, the detectives told Lobato that they knew she had recently been attacked. The police recorded a statement in which Lobato described the attempted rape in late May, stating that it had happened “at least a month ago,” clearly describing a motel parking lot as the location and not a dumpster, and describing a man who was mobile and alive when she left and not beaten to death, as was Bailey. Under the mistaken belief that police were informing her that the man who tried to rape her had died, she expressed remorse, and made other comments that the detective took as a confession for Bailey’s murder, even though the event Lobato described was glaringly at odds with the basic facts of his killing. 
 
 Armed only with this statement, the detectives arrested Lobato for Bailey’s murder. The police did not investigate clear alternate perpetrators with the motive and means to so violently kill Bailey. On July 1, 2001, one week before he was found dead, Bailey assaulted and raped a woman who lived in an apartment building next to the bank where his body would be found. Bailey threatened to kill the woman if she told anyone, but she eventually reported the attack to the police on July 5, 2001, just three days before Bailey was killed. She also told a number of her male neighbors who had an ongoing dispute with Bailey about the attack. Despite the woman’s prior contact with the victim, as well as her male friends’ motive to retaliate against Bailey, the police prematurely dismissed these potential suspects. 
 
 Instead, the police focused solely on Lobato, a teenager with no connection to Bailey and no motive to harm him. At trial, the prosecution relied primarily on Lobato’s statement to the detectives, which they characterized as a confession, as there was no physical or forensic evidence linking Lobato to this crime. The defense presented numerous family members and neighbors who testified that Lobato was actually in Panaca on July 8, 2001. The prosecution even conceded in summation that Lobato was in Panaca as of 11:30 a.m. on July 8th. However, the prosecution relied heavily on their medical examiner’s time of death estimation to undermine Lobato’s alibi defense: the medical examiner estimated that Bailey died up to 24 hours before he was pronounced dead at 3:50 a.m. on July 9th, meaning at approximately 4 a.m. on July 8th. The State argued that this put Bailey’s death at a time when Lobato was not accounted for by her alibi witnesses, and the jury convicted her. 
 
 At the October 2017 hearing, Lobato presented the testimony of three forensic entomologists, or insect scientists, all of whom concluded that based on the weather conditions in Las Vegas on July 8, 2001 and based on the outdoor location where Bailey’s body was found, one would expect to see his body teeming with blowfly eggs within a short period of time after his death. Blowflies arrive very shortly after death and lay hundreds of easily observable eggs in a freshly dead body’s orifices and wounds. Given that Bailey’s body had no blowfly eggs on it, each of the forensic entomologists independently concluded that he had to have died close in time to when his body was discovered around 10 p.m. on July 8th, during which time, as conceded even by the prosecution, Lobato was three hours away with her family in Panaca. A forensic pathologist also independently concluded that based on the recorded rigor mortis changes in Bailey’s body between the time when his body was discovered and when his autopsy was conducted, he likely died during the early evening hours of July 8th. Based on this compelling scientific evidence which could have been presented at Lobato’s trial and which would have likely changed the jury’s outcome, Judge Miley granted Lobato’s habeas corpus petition and vacated her convictions. 
 
 “We are grateful that the court recognized that Ms. Lobato’s defense counsel was ineffective for failing to present scientific evidence showing that the victim died close in time to when his body was found, at a time when Ms. Lobato was hours away from the crime scene.” Adnan Sultan 
 
 “We are grateful that the court recognized that Ms. Lobato’s defense counsel was ineffective for failing to present scientific evidence showing that the victim died close in time to when his body was found, at a time when Ms. Lobato was hours away from the crime scene,” said Adnan Sultan, Staff Attorney at the Innocence Project. “After sixteen years of wrongful conviction, Ms. Lobato’s name is finally cleared and she can begin to build her life as a free woman,” said Jane Pucher, Staff Attorney at the Innocence Project.
– Kirstin Lobato will be happier than most to leave 2017 behind. Twice convicted of the brutal murder of a homeless man in Las Vegas, the 35-year-old is expected to start a new chapter when she becomes a free woman for the first time since 2001. A judge granted a request from a district attorney Friday that she be cleared of all charges and released "with prejudice," meaning Nevada can never again prosecute Lobato for Duran Bailey's murder, reports the Intercept. The move followed a judge's order vacating Lobato's murder conviction on Dec. 19, based on hours of testimony from pathology and entomology experts. They said Bailey, 44, was killed—his carotid artery was slashed and penis cut off—around 9pm on July 8, 2001, while 18-year-old Lobato was hours away from Sin City, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Prosecutors had claimed Lobato killed the homeless man in the morning—based on a rumor that she cut the penis of a man who tried to rape her weeks earlier—but that conflicted with an absence of blowflies, which collect on dead bodies. "Although we fully believe in her guilt … our resources are such that we are electing not to proceed with the third trial of this defendant, particularly considering the more than 15 years she has served in prison," Chief Deputy District Attorney Sandra DiGiacomo said Friday. It's not yet clear when Lobato, who had no connection to Bailey, will walk free. Though the judge said she should be released "forthwith," Lobato was convicted of voluntary sexual conduct in prison in 2007, which added a year to her sentence. Her Innocence Project attorneys say they will push for her immediate release regardless.