No comment from Clark County D.A. Steve Wolfsen, after a Las Vegas judge 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. In a one-page order, Chief Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez ordered Lobato released from the Nevada Department of corrections. The Las Vegas Sun reports, a 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 Duran Bailey’s 2001 death.
The 34-year-old Lobato, incarcerated at Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in North Las Vegas since early 2007, 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.