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Jaime
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Crawford
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Hathway previous | Tulia,
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Kirstin Lobato
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My apologies to the hard-working
people on Kirstin Lobato's defence team. I asked for an update
I could publish on injusticebusters and then missed the e-mail
when it was sent several weeks ago.
This is an "update"
up to August 31! Court TV was said to be covering the trial but
could not get enough stations to pick it up so they sent their
resources elsewhere.
Hello.
I have been aware of your site for some time now. You
do not know me nor of me. You know of my cause and the
cause of the people working with me.
It is the cause of a young woman named Kirstin Blaise Lobato,
of Panaca, Nevada. A tale of a woman who has suffered many
injustices in her life and who, in a few short weeks, will have
the chance to put the biggest injustice behind her.
I became involved a little more
than a year ago now. The fact that this can happen in our
country disgusts me, and I know it is not an uncommon occurrence,
as evidenced by the many stories on this site, from Canada and
the US. But I felt a personal pull to this case and offered
my help. In the course of this year, I have come to know
some of the key people and have talked to Kirstin herself I
know the truth, and it is my sincere hope, within one month's
time, the whole country will know the truth.
I was asked to give
an update on the case up to this point. I am not sure where to
start. Although I have only involved only since August of last
year, I am well aware, through transcripts and newspaper
articles, of key dates in the case leading up to this point.
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19 year old Kirstin Lobato was convicted
early on the morning of May 18, 2002, for murder in the first
degree, and sexual penetration of a dead human body. The
conviction came despite ZERO physical or forensics evidence to
tie her to the scene. It came with alibi witnesses and phone
records and drug tests that proved she was not in Las Vegas,
where the murder occurred, but in Panaca, some 170 miles away,
at the time of the incident. It came despite the facts that no
one could tie her to the victim and that there were a good 3
or 4 other suspects that were never checked out, and that bodily
injury to the murder victim could have implicated these people.
It came solely because the lead prosecutor,
Bill Kephart, put on the performance of his life in closing arguments.
It came because he and his co-counsel, Sandra DiGiacomo,
managed to block key forensic and alibi witnesses that would
have exonerated Kirstin. It came because they also had
a "star" witness named Korinda Martin, a jailhouse
snitch who Kirstin's lawyer proved was lying on the witness stand,
but the jury never heard that.
On August 27th, 2002, Kirstin was sentenced
to 40 to 100 years in prison.
On March 11th, 2004, Kirstin's Case was
heard before the Nevada Supreme Court on appeal.
On September 3rd, 2004, Kirstin's conviction
was overturned, based on the judge not allowing Martin to be
impeached about a fraud she committed upon her own sentencing
court (and perjury in Kirstin's case).
On October 28th 2004, Kirstin's bail
was set at $500,000, which is TEN TIMES the bail set before the
original trial.
In January 2005, new lawyers, Shari Greenberger
and Sara Zalkin of Pier 5 Law, (an office they share with Tony
Serra, considered to be one of the top 10 attorneys in the country)
joined David Schieck of the Special Public Defenders office.
They are working pro-bono (although their expenses have been
paid by supporters who believe in Kirstin's innocence). A
new trial date was set for November 7, 2005.
In October 2005, the defense filed its
witness list at the predetermined 3-week cutoff before the scheduled
November 7 trial. Unknown to us at the time, the prosecution
was seeking a continuance because of an illness to the judge
in the case. So the prosecution never had to file their
list..
On November 3, 2005, at calendar call,
the Thursday before the trial was to begin, the judge set a new
trial date for April 17, 2006.
Over the next month, outraged at the
delay and sick of seeing Blaise suffer behind bars any longer,
friends and family managed to raise her bail. Despite delays
(due to the bondsman being out of the country and the Nevada
Attorney General stalling on paperwork), Kirstin was FINALLY
released on bail on December 2, 2005.
Over the next few months, many pre-trial
motions and oppositions were sent. Kirstin's trial was
now slated to start on April 17, 2006, but complications arose
when Kirstin's case overlapped with another one Shari and Sara
were on. So the trial was put back again, this time set
for September 11, 2006.
On May 19, 2006, A pretrial hearing to
settle in limine motions for the trial was heard. Most
of the defense motions were dismissed, but a few were carried
over to be heard at later dates.
In July 2006 another hearing is held.
Here the defense is granted portions of its motions regarding
Korinda Martin and how they can impeach her in the new trial.
New DNA tests on physical evidence were ordered to see
if it matches anyone in the database (the evidence already excludes
Kirstin).
On August 10 2006, a final hearing was
held. Here the defense motion to dismiss based on lack
of evidence other then Kirstin's statements was denied.
Also, the prosecution took back the statement that the new DNA
tests mentioned above were ordered, stretching the truth in doing
so. The Judge, who refuses to take responsibility for making
the right decision in this case, and dismissing the charges against
Kirstin, will leave the taxpayers of Nevada to face the financial
burden of this trial so the "jury can decide" a case
without any physical evidence. Judge Vega is up for re-election
in 2008.
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So that is where we are up until this
point. The calendar call for the case, with a motion to
limit graphic autopsy photos, will be on September 7, 2006.
The trial itself will start the following
Monday, September 11th. Please keep us in your thoughts.
Most importantly, please keep Kirstin in your thoughts.
Scott Aznavourian
August 31, 2006
Court TV is covering this trial, where
the prosecution is again running the same salacious story --
and the media is lapping it up.
___
Kirstin Lobato says she
was out of town the night Duran Bailey was mutilated and murdered.
By Matt Pordum, Court TV,
September 15, 2006
LAS VEGAS - Before police ever
asked Kirstin Blaise Lobato a single question about the mutilation
and murder of a homeless man, she bowed her head and cried, saying,
"I didn't think anyone would miss anybody like that."
The man Lobato thought no one
would miss was 43-year-old Duran Bailey, prosecutor Bill Kephart
told jurors during his opening statement in Lobato's trial Thursday.
The prosecutor alleges Lobato,
who was then 18, encountered Bailey while she was on a three-day
methamphetamine binge on July 8, 2001, when she ran out of drugs
and money and attempted to exchange sex for drugs from Bailey.
When Lobato, now 23, realized
Bailey didn't have any drugs, she pulled out a butterfly knife,
cut off his penis and killed him with a combination of stabbings
and blows to the head with a baseball bat, according to Kephart.
Bailey's injuries also included
what the coroner determined was a postmortem stabbing to his
anus.
Story continues Story continues
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After a thorough investigation
of the crime scene, however, police had no suspects, Kephart
said.
They had no leads until July
20, when officers received a phone call from a woman in Northern
Nevada asking if the police have any ongoing cases with a severed
penis involved.
The call came from Lobato's
confidante and former teacher, who said Lobato came to her house
"extremely upset about something she had done in Las Vegas."
Kephart said police officers
drove to Lobato's parents' home in Panaca, Nev., about 160 miles
north of Las Vegas, and questioned the teen about the incident.
Lobato told them Bailey was
"an older smelly black man, a person who smelled like alcohol
and dirty diapers" whom she was trying to keep out of her
mind.
The prosecutor said Lobato
was in her hometown for the Fourth of July celebration. But neighbors
are expected to testify that, on July 5 and 6, Lobato fought
with her mother about returning to Las Vegas.
Kephart contends Lobato drove
to Las Vegas angry and looking for more methamphetamine when
she came into contact with Bailey.
The prosecutor said several
of Lobato's friends will testify that she would "do anything
she could do to get her hands on meth."
Other witnesses will testify
that Bailey was known as someone who traded sex for drugs.
But Lobato's attorney, Shari
Greenberger, told jurors that Lobato never met the victim and
was "160 miles away in Panaca" when the killing occurred.
The defense attorney said witnesses and phone records will support
her alibi.
When Lobato was confiding in
her former teacher and later talking to police, Greenberger said,
she believed she was discussing a different incident weeks earlier
in which she was sexually assaulted by another man.
The defense attorney contends
the police took Lobato's story of being attacked and acting in
self-defense and "twisted it into a confession" to
the murder and mutilation of Bailey.
She also pointed to a lack
of physical evidence, saying DNA on gum at the scene, a foreign
pubic hair found on Bailey, bloody shoeprints and tire tracks
have all been shown to have no connection to Lobato.
Greenberger also offered another
possible suspect - a woman named Diane Parker.
Greenberger claims Parker was
raped by Bailey one week before he was found dead, giving her
or someone she knows a motive to kill him. Parker was at the
crime scene and identified Bailey's body for police, Greenberger
noted.
Lobato was convicted of first-degree
murder and sexual penetration of a corpse on May 18, 2002, and
later sentenced to 40 to 100 years in prison.
In September 2004, however,
the Nevada Supreme Court granted her a new trial, citing the
trial judge's failure to admit evidence that could have weakened
the credibility of a jailhouse informant.
Lobato's retrial is being covered
live by Court TV
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell