America has two point two million people in prison. If just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people. That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.
If the system want to take you out of society, they will do it no matter what laws they have to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but they're breaking the lord.
Having to hear those people say that I was guilty of a crime that I did not commit, and then hear my family break down behind me and not be able to do anything about it. I can't describe the crushing weight that was.
I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.
A lot of times we look and we see something happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said, that could never happen to me, But.
They can.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's featured guest is Blaize Lobato, who only recently was freed from prison after serving over sixteen years for a crime she didn't commit.
July first, two thousand and one, a homeless man named Duran Bailey was found brutally murdered. An eighteen year old was found guilty of that crime. Lobata was sentenced to thirteen to forty five years after being found guilty of manslaughter in two thousand and six. At the crime scene there were cigarette butts, chewing gum, bloody shoe prints, fingerprints, pubic hair, and seamen.
Dozens of the items at the crime scene were never tested.
The family of Lobato and her supporters maintained it was a botched police investigation in which DNA was never tested, leeds were never followed, and more importantly, the family says the savage killer or killers are still out there.
Blaze, welcome to the show. I'm sorry you're here.
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate that. You know. I'm sorry as well, but it is what it is.
And with Blaze are two of her attorneys, Innocence Project staff attorneys Jane Boucher and Odd Non Sultan. Jane od Non.
Welcome, Hi, Hi, thank you for having us.
Glad to have you here. So Blaze, your story, even among all the crazy stories that we cover on this show, has elements that we've never heard about. And I want to get right into it. Let's go back to your childhood. I mean, you're still a child pretty much when all this happens, you're still a teenager. But where did you grow up? How did you grow up? How was your life before the before the storm hit?
Well, I was born in Last Crisis, New Mexico. When I was about two years old, my biological mother and my father came to Las Vegas to begin their new life together, and shortly thereafter things didn't work out in their relationship. My mother took my father to court and gained custody of me. When I was about five years old, she took me to California where I was sexually abused
by her boyfriend for an extended period of time. And because of that abuse, my dad got me back without going through the courts.
How six nice Jesus Christ.
So from that point on we lived in Las Vegas. You know, there were periods of feast and famine because of my parents' lifestyle. At times, my father sold drugs to support our family. And when that was the case, everything was wonderful. We had everything, and when it wasn't, you know, we were living on beans and rice for months at a time. So my childhood was was you know,
it was tough. It was tough, and you know, when my family would get too far over the edge, or later on, when I started getting in trouble as a teenager, they would ship me to Texas to be with my grandparents. So it was kind of a back and forth game. At some point, I think I was about ten or eleven, my dad's drug abuse became so so bad that my stepmom gave him an ultimatum that either they leave or
she would leave him. So we moved to a small town in northern Nevada called Panaka, and it was very difficult. It was a predominantly Mormon community and we stood out. We were the outcasts, and it made it difficult for me. So when I had junior high school, the only place that I found acceptance was with the bad crowd, and thus the drug abuse began.
Right, So you ended up getting involved and drugs, But it's important to note that you were actually drug free at the time that the criminal justice system collapsed inwards on you. Yeah, okay, so you you got involved with drugs. You were around drugs so much was probably almost inevitable.
Right when I was seventeen, I was raped by my best friend's father, and it was at that point that I decided never again and So when I was assaulted in Las Vegas later and I escaped, I was so proud of myself for being able to defend myself and not be a victim yet again that I told everyone.
And by the way, that's not a story you hear every day, right, You don't hear too many stories of rapes going wrong unless somebody walks in on them, or you know, there's a you know, there's some outside interference. Otherwise people get trapped and some of them considers it was likely just to survive. Right, So how did you manage to escape this rapet to where was it?
It was at the Budget Suite on Boulder Highway and Las Vegas.
How did it come about?
I was out late partying and I was leaving my car and I got attacked in the parking lot and I had a knife on me, and I fended off the attack with a knife. I don't know what I cut if I cut him, you know, I don't know the extent of his injuries, obviously, but I was able to get out from underneath him and get away, get in my car and drive.
So he tried to rape you in the parking lot. In the parking lot in the middle of the night, in the middle of the night, so you got away for once, for once, finally, and you're feeling sort of triumphant. So you go home and you tell people about it, because I mean, I'm excited to tell people about it right now. So I imagine it would have been something you would have been spreading the news.
Yeah, I was. I was proud of myself. So things got a little crazy after that. I continued the drug use, and at some point I decided that that was not the life that I wanted to live. So I left Las Vegas and went back to Panaka to get clean. And there was a little bit of back and forth in there. I can't remember exactly the dates and times, but I know that I came back to Vegas for a very short period of time and called my dad and made him come get me so that I could
leave again. And then actually, on the night of the eighth was when I was going to go back to Vegas again and try again and again without success, and ended up back in Panaka. So when the homicide detective showed up in my house, the first thing that they said to me was, we know what happened to you as a child. Because there was police reports and such, so they were able to find it in their system and they used that as a tool to manipulate me.
So how did they use that as a tool to manipulate you?
At that point, I hadn't worked through the trauma, so when they brought it up and they started asking questions, it immediately shut me down and made me emotional. And then they were like, we know you were attacked. They acted like they were on my side. They asked me three times, they questioned me through three times before they ever recorded, and they didn't give me my Miranda rights until after the fact, which you know, we never made
an issue of because it's neither here nor there. I mean, it should have been maybe, but I don't have any proof because I signed the Miranda card, so I can't say it was before or it was after.
You know, when they started questioning you, did you know what they were questioning you about?
No. I assumed that it was the situation I went through, and I thought, oh, I must have really, you know, it must have been a traumatic injury and it must have killed the guy. I had no idea they were talking about something else in another part of town at another time, of the year. I had no idea.
How crazy, right, So you're having two different conversations at the same time, and the.
Police never they never questioned me further to iron out the discrepancies.
This is like surreal, right, they're actually questioning you about a crime that you don't even know they're and you've got this other thing in your head. There must be like some very strange moments in that conversation.
Her statement is about the attack from budget suites. That's what she's actually describing. And they had I mean, we talked about this tunnel vision that they weren't willing to question, like some of the things she said doesn't make sense.
Everything that was inconsistent. They just said, oh, she used drugs, right and discounted it.
That's a catch all. And Jane to talk about that, and I also like to get your just a summary of this gruesome crime that they decided that she must have been a suspect in, but they were questioning her about something that was completely foreign to her.
Sure, So just to give a little bit of timeline, you know, this crime, this person, Duran Bailey was the name of the victim, was killed on July eighth and on July twentieth, the police drive the three hours you know, from Las Vegas to Panaka and basically bombard plays in her home. It's sort of you know, her family home.
Put her in a room, you know, tell her parents that they can't be in the room, close the doors, and they start interrogating her about what she thinks, as you just said, was something that happened two months earlier when you were attacked and these this man tried to rape.
You, which was self defense exactly.
And you know when Blaze left the parking lot that night and drove off and got away from this man, the man was standing, you know, he was you know, I think ripping his groin area and in pain. You know, maybe there was a struggle, but he was alive, and he was, you know, for someone who was going to move on from this. The person who was a victim in this case that she ultimately gets prosecuted for, was
brutalized so badly. There is no question that there could be a confusion between the man that sexually assaulted her and this person who ends up being victimized. He was found with his penis completely severed five feet away from his body. Both of his eyes were beaten shut to the point that no one could even look inside them. He had I think something like eighteen or nineteen gashes
all over his body. He had led out, you know, entirely in a garbage dump, and he was completely covered by garbage to the point where no one found him for probably a few hours. So the scene where this person is found is completely different than what Blaze describes to the police during that interrogation. And I think one of the most incredible things about this case is that interrogation is recorded. There is a recording of it, there's
a transcription of that recording, and so we talk. I'm sure you've talked in this podcast before about false confessions and the importance of recording statements. The crazy thing here is that statement was recorded, the police could review it, the prosecutors could review it, and the tunnel vision was so extreme that they didn't even see She's not talking. She can't be talking about this assault, this person being killed. She's talking about something that happened two months before.
What a bizarre set of circumstances. And the reason that they came to what was the name of the town again, Panaka? Yeah, not a place I've ever heard of before. I guess
most people haven't. But the reason they came there was because somebody had mentioned to somebody else about you, having said to them or a friend about this assault that you survived by defending yourself, and they thought, well, if this guy was cut with a knife somewhere near the groin area, then you must be this crazy killer who goes around cutting men's penises off and throwing them on the street. I mean, this crime from what it sounds like. I mean, people can't see you on the radio, but
you're not a giant, imposing figure. It sounds like whoever did this was probably a very strong probably a man can't say that for sure.
But well, you know, it's interesting that you brought that up, because one of their own experts said that the crime itself was inconsistent with a woman, and that, in fact, because of the severity of the injuries, they wouldn't be surprised if there was more than one perpetrator.
Well, and actually they overlooked what should have been an obvious clue. Do you want to talk about that?
It's absurd. There was a woman who had actually been attacked by mister Bailey a week or so before reported it.
It told the police where they could find him, and they never did, so if they had, maybe he would still be alive.
Most remarkable, I mean a sipham is that the day the police where they're investigating and sort of at the scene, she lived like right behind the dumpster era, there's like an apartment complex. She comes to the scene and speaks with the police officers and oh, is that Durant Bailey who's dead, and tells them about this past incident with him. I mean, it's right there for them to look into.
And there was more to that too, right there was.
She also tells the police that she has a number of male friends who live kind of with her or near her in this apartment complex, and that she had told them about this attack, that she had been raped by Duran Bailey, and you know that they were upset by it and they had actually some of them apparently had had issues with mister Bailey in the past. So what appears at a crime scene like a crime that is committed by at least one man with a weapon,
if not several. I mean, it seems like a gang beating.
Of sorts with a lot of anger, with a lot.
Of anger and a lot of power and a lot of blood that somehow does not encourage the police to investigate these men and to look into their backgrounds and pursue them as suspects. Instead, the case is cold for two weeks and when they get a phone call saying from Panaka saying there's a girl up here talking about an injury with the penis, They drive up there get what they consider to be a confession, and that's it.
Did they never even talk to these three guys? No?
I mean, they claim that they made some cursory efforts to look into their background, but they never spoke with them, and there's.
No proof that they actually did that, right.
I mean, granted, maybe they didn't, maybe they didn't treat it as a super high priority because he was a homeless guy. But this was a vicious, terrible, gruesome crime that it's not illogical to think that if someone has the capability or some people have the capability of doing that to this homeless man, he's probably not going to be the last victim.
Absolutely, And when you think about all of the harms that are compounded in this case, right, like, not only was Blaize victimized two months before this, and she it was you managed to escape, but you know, only by her own strength and determination, not because of help by
the police. You then have this woman who's actually raped by mister Bailey, the person who ultimately is killed and the victim in this case, and the police never pursue him, you know, and never go after him or try to prosecute him against hers, and then he ends up falling.
Victim to vigilant, just exactly.
Because that's what has to step in to fix it.
So at no point did anybody in law enforcement get anything, right, is that fair to say?
That's fair to say.
And meanwhile you're in the center of this and you don't even know what the fuck is going on.
No, And.
The more along the way we found more and more and more things out At the first trial, there were so many things that weren't available to us. We didn't know that there was pubic hairs found. We didn't know that there was a rape kit dona and that none of it had been tested. We didn't know that he had cards in his pocket that indicate that he was a police informant. We didn't know these things.
Wow, this is getting deeper and deeper, right.
So, I mean there was plenty of avenues for them to pursue to investigate, and they did not.
Wow, so strange. I mean, it just doesn't And then they just decide to drive three hours when all they had to do was go next door. Instead of going next door, they drove three hours and found you.
And it gets worse because you can clearly see the malice behind their actions. It's illustrated very well in the second trial when Detective thousand lied on the stand claiming that his secretary did the investigation. We had no idea. But it turns out detectives don't have secretaries, So who did the investigation? Nobody exactly exactly and.
We don't even know which investigation which as well as who knows well there was none, so it doesn't really matter. He could have been refright to anything, right, but.
At the second trial we didn't have that information. There was no way for us because when you're not a part of their system, you don't know how it works. You don't know what they have and what they don't have, So how do you defend yourself against that?
I just it's it's so difficult for me to understand why they would want to victimize a victim. Right, you're a victim. I mean even we were a victim your whole life to this point. They knew that, right. It's just so it's so weird to me how the morality breaks down so totally.
I think one thing in this case is, you know, Blaize wasn't living in Las Vegas. She was living three hours north in a tiny town, which I think in the trial got painted as a place that's really different from where we live in Las Vegas. You know, listen jury members to what I'm saying. She's not one of us. She's from a different place, and she's a teenager. We're going to paint her as wild and drug addicted and different and the kind of person that we don't want
in our community. I think the prosecution did a really effective, evil job of painting her as this wild child who we just want to make sure we can punish and keep off our streets. And there was a lot of othering, and that's a huge part of I think what the criminal justice system does generally is to make people seem like Pariah's when you know, in fact, she was never
investigated and they didn't look clearly into the case. But I think she was really hurt by the fact that she wasn't from Las Vegas, and they knew about her drug issues at the time and were able to just use that as a character assassination as opposed to an actual prosecution.
Do you think that the prosecutor knew that he was prosecuting a cent woman?
Absolutely, and in fact, I'm not the first person that he did it too.
And their theory at trial was that Blaize left Panaka in the early morning hours ago find drugs. She went all the way to Las Vegas to do that, which is three hours away.
Because there's nowhere in between Panaca and right so you could.
Get drub and that, of all the places in Las Vegas to get drugs, she went to this behind the bank across the street from the Palms Hotel, which is like off the street. It exist, it didn't even it's actually being built at the time. And then she met this man who she's never met. I mean, this was uncontract. There were strangers. She meets this guy, mister Bailey, and mister Bailey in exchange for drugs, wanted a sexual favor, and that Blaze flipped out and cut his penis off
and killed him. Brutally murdered him, then hopped into her car and high tailed it back to Panaka three hours away. When I was there a thing and no one, no one in their office, was like, hmm, does this make sense? Maybe this is not quite right.
Maybe there should be some blood in the car, or there should be some leather evidence of biological level. This is just not how people.
This is insane, Like no one does this, and that maybe there's someone else who lives in Las Vegas who committed this car and maybe that's a more likely explanation for what happened. I mean, that's what you do as a lawyer, right, You look at a case, you analyze the faction, think what makes sense, what doesn't make sense. And they're the prosecution. They don't have to go to trial in these cases. They chose to go to trial on these sets of facts, like their job is to
do justice. They don't inherent cases like defense attorneys and have to defend someone to make best what they do. They choose the theory they go forward with. And the fact that no one, not a district attorney, not the district attorney, looked at this case said you know what, this doesn't make sense.
Is really scary.
Well, in addition to that, the original DA had a discussion with my attorney at the time, who was Phil Cone, and he put a deal of three years on the table and I was like, absolutely not. I'm not taking that. I didn't do it.
At this point, you probably still I.
Believed in the justice system. I thought everything would would work out a trial.
You know.
I had no idea that the prosecution was going to use smoke and mirrors on their own science and try and paint it to the jury that there was evidence that wasn't there. Like, for instance, when they did the luminol and phenal failing test on my car, they got a reaction, it was a false positive. They did the hemoglobin test, which is what actually determines if it's blood, and it was negative, but they painted it to the jury like there was something there when there was nothing there.
That's just to put context. That's what you were talking about, Jason, that there should be blood in her car.
Right.
They ran these tests that they had an expert to testify about, these sorts of tests that confirmed the existence of blood. As Blay says, they came up negative. There was a false positive, but they inferred they left this insinuation that she tried to clean up the blood with bleach or something like.
That, right, But then Luminaul would show the bleach. I mean, you can't hide bleach. You can't have it both ways, right, you.
Can't say twist the science, right, which at some point, when you look at the facts, you're like, nothing's adding up here. Maybe the conclusion is she didn't do it, rather than well, that doesn't fit our theory, that doesn't fit our narrative.
No, they went with, maybe we can convince the jury that she did do it, even though we know she didn't do it. It hurts me to think of the fact that so much of it was avoidable, and so much of it was willful, but it happened. It's reality, and it's your reality. And so do you finally go to trial? Right, And I'm assume you were held in jail awaiting trial.
I was in jail for several months and then I was able to post bail and bey on house arrest.
So okay, a period of time that went by and finally it's time for the trial. And how long was your trial?
The first trial was two weeks.
So it's a long trial. That taxpayer expense. So when the jury went out, how long did they deliverate for.
I believe the first time was five hours.
And now you had seen a lot of the dark sides of the justice system, did you still believe that you would be declared innocent and free?
By that point? I was afraid because I had seen their maneuvers, and I had seen the way that things were taking shape, and I had seen, you know, my defense, and I just I felt like the odds were stacked against me.
They were, for sure, you know. And then the jury comes back in and what was that moment? Like, well, you had said so many terrible moments in your young life, but this moment must have been just as devastating as it could be.
I mean, there were several devastating moments, you know. The most horrific for me was actually when I first got arranged and they handed me a sheet of paper that said they reserved the right to pursue the death penalty. That was a moment that I will never forget. I had a physical reaction where I felt so sick, and I think my heart stopped beating for a moment, and I was just so overwhelmed, Like I could not believe
that this was happening to me. And when the jury came back and found me guilty, it was a similar feeling. And I remember looking back because my family had been subpoena so they weren't allowed to be in the courtroom with me, so I was completely alone. I looked back he was finally able to be there, and I saw my dad and he was green. He was green, and
he was crying. And all I could do was just hold myself together because I didn't want to break down in front of them and make it even worse for them.
Now we hear that from others who've been through your situation as well. It's so amazing that you feel that you need to be strong for other people when the whole earth just opened up and swallowed you. Right, But that says a lot about your character. So then you're convicted and sentenced to.
Forty two one hundred years at nineteen years.
Old, So essentially now you've been given a life sentence and off you go to prison, right? And where were you in prison?
At FMWCC in Las Vegas?
And is that as bad as it sounds, It's.
Not wonderful, you know, it's not the Hilton. No, it's not the Ritz Carlton.
How did you survive sixteen plus years in that situation? And if you can remember any happy moment, if there was a happy moment in prison, and what was the worst moment while you were there?
Oh, there were absolutely happy moments. I encountered some really beautiful people while I was in there, and I encountered some really horrible people. You know, it's like anywhere you go, there's good and there's bad. But there were some experiences that I had that were unique in that I had a jailhouse snitch that had testified against me in the
first trial. I had never spoken to her. I didn't even know who she was when she got on the stand, but they pulled phone records and apparently she was somebody that had had taken advantage of my kindness and came to me at the phones and asked for a three way call, and I gave it to her. But I had no idea who she was. So she read about me in the paper. She called the DA's office, and I presume that there was an exchange of information to help her testify. So she got to prison before me.
I had to deal with seeing her everywhere. First thing she did was say that she was afraid for her life. So the warden pulled me into an office and told me that he was going to transfer me to another state. I begged him, literally begged him. I said, listen, I'm in appeals. I don't care about her. And he made it very clear. He said, if I had any issues with her whatsoever, they would ship me out of there
so fast they would make my head spin. And at that time, I didn't want to be shipped out because I wanted to be able to see my family and
my friends. So I had to see her everywhere. And here, you know, in a roundabout way, all the lies that she was telling to justify her actions, because it was in the newspaper that she was a snitch, and so she was telling everybody that she was my friend from the streets and that I had taken her to the crime scene and all this crazy shit to justify her actions to everyone else.
Wow, and can we talk for a minute about jail house snitches and how pernisious this whole practice is.
Oh yeah, it's so easy for them. It's so easy for them to seize an opportunity to try and get less time. You know, they lie, they cheat, they still it doesn't matter. They don't have morals or ethics. They'll do whatever it takes not to go to prison or to be there for less time.
It's so weird. Everybody knows you can't bribe a witness, right, Anybody who watches TV, anyone who's been to eighth grade knows you can't bribe a witness. But the government can, and they can bribe them with the best thing you can imagine, which is get out of jail free cards, right, and how that can be used in court is nuts.
When you have such an obvious motive to lie, it's right, but it happens a lot of it happened to you, and then you had to live with this woman, So Jesus, I mean, that's that ain't great, And it's not at.
All surprising that you know, in about seventeen percent of post conviction DNA exonerations, snitch testimony played a role.
That's a huge.
Amount, you know, and there are probably many more cases than that, but you know, in terms of the cases where DNA testing has led to an exoneration, about seventeen percent of those have involved snitch testimony.
You went through a second trial. Let's just talk about that for a minute, and if you could explain the chronology of this, right, So, because you had multiple trials, I.
Did, and I won my first appeal based on the perjury of the jail house snitch because we were able to prove that she perjured her testimony. And so I was granted an appeal, granted a new trial based on those grounds, and sent back for a retrial. And basically they said any other issues that we had stated, we could remedy and retrial. However, we went back to the same judge and the same prosecutors and they pulled the
same shit, so we were in the same boat. In addition to that, Michelle had mortgaged her house and second mortgage actually to finance Tony Sarah out of California to represent me. Unfortunately, he got indicted for tax evasion and so we were given two less experienced attorneys from his office and they were going to work in conjunction with the Special Public Defender's office in order to work under
his license and to help finance experts and such. It was a rough, rough, rough time because everything that my female attorneys out of California suggested or tried to strive for in regards to expert testimony, was blocked by the special public defender because he didn't want to finance them.
So wait, so your own attorney blocked.
Yeah, he was like, Oh, we don't need that, we don't need that, We'll be fine. Everything the girls suggested, he shut it down.
I don't know if it's clear. Tony Sarah is a legendary defense attorney out from California who I guess has issues paying taxes and didn't pay his taxes the time they hired him and was indicted.
For tax fraud.
But I guess let two of his younger associates continue to work on Blaze's case, and those were the I guess the two female lawyers had Blaze referring to It.
Sounds like they were trying to do the right thing as well.
They were, but at the same time, like he was the more experienced attorney and they deferred to his judgment. So it was a tough situation. I begged him to get all of all of the evidence tested for DNA, and he said it wasn't until that point that he even believed in my innocence. And they still to this day have never tested all of the evidence.
So you survived somehow? This I mean it was really half almost half of your life in prison. I mean you were eighteen when you were arrested, right, and you were in for sixteen plus years and half of your life maxim security prison. And then what happened? How did you find? Well? How did you find the strength to survive? Is one question. The second question is how did you get in contact with the lawyers who ultimately freed you? And who is your angel in all this whole situation?
Well, Michelle Ravelle is my angel. She has become my mom. She has been my staunchest supporter and my biggest advocate. She has fought for me tirelessly. She has put in so many hours of time and energy and given me so much love.
How did you find how did you first get in contact with her?
Actually?
I dated her son at one point before all of this happened, and I continued the relationship through my stints of freedom in between my.
Trials, when you're on house arrest and stuff.
When I was on house arrest, and then later when I was on bail for my second trial.
But even still, you know, one would sort of assume that once you get sent away, those things fade, right, and they do. I mean, but she didn't fade.
She did not fade.
If anything, the opposite, right. It sounds like she, like like a lot of us, she got mad and decided to do something about it. And she's here in the studio today and maybe we'll have a little cameo appearance from her a little while. But so she became your rock, yes, And I love talking about that because it's inspiring and she deserves a ton of credit for that, and I
see how emotionally you get talking about her. But it's important also to talk about it because of the fact that our listeners out there need to know that you can make a difference, right, even though a lot of people say, well what can I do? I don't know what to do? You can make it different.
Just be there, listen, spread the word.
I mean, everybody seems like, you know, there's probably you know, social scientists estimates is probably one hundred thousand innocent people in prison.
And Michelle's not just I mean, she's been like sort of an emotional support for Blaze, but she's also done a lot of advocacy on behalf of Blaze during the sort of the appeals process, and she's been talking about how we're sort of talking about people listen, they don't know what to do, and I think she was in a similar position. And she started off put a website together about Blaze's case and what was going on with Blaze, and drummed up some support with that and has social
media's advance. With Facebook, she got a Facebook page with about Blaze's case and has garnered a lot of support. Unfortunately, like you know, after convictions and trials happened, cases and people fade away and people forget. And I think Michelle, to her credit, really wouldn't let anyone forget about Blaze.
Now.
She herself and she's come up with all kinds of clever ideas. She had t shirts made with my face on it that said what if this was your daughter? To spread the word, she did stickers, any any little idea that she thought might help ran with it.
And that's again, if you're listening, you know these are things you can do, I mean, just talk about it. Do you think without Michelle's help you would have ever gotten out?
Absolutely not. I would have served every day of my sons. Probably the original sentence.
So there you go. So then somehow or other, the Innocence Project got a hold of your case.
Yes, Vannison's project first got involved offering to pay to have all of the items tested at any lab that Nevada chose, and Nevada repeatedly said no, despite petitions, despite you know whatever, they said, no, no, no, no, no, they wouldn't do it.
What year was this, I think it was around twenty ten when the first consulting, and there was some back and forth over a couple of years, and when the Innocence Project when we came on as a team, so with Vanessa Potkin, the director of post conviction Litigation myself, odd none came on in full force. Was after the Nevada Supreme Court remanded Blaze's case for an evidentiary hearing having to do with issues around time of death and entomology, which will I'm sure get into more in a minute.
But so, even though the Innocence Projects had come on to consult and agreed to pay for some testing to try to get more DNA testing done, there had been a lot of roadblocks on that path, and so we ultimately were able to exonerate her, not through DNA testing, but through this evidentiary hearing that we had about six months ago at this point, Okay.
I just make one point because I do think Blaze's comments about her public defender not willing to test items for budgetary reasons, that's certainly played out to be the wrong choice. But I do think it highlights issues of public defenders not being funded properly to sort of properly work up cases all over the country where I think there is a need to sort of even out the playing field so that people can be properly defended who don't have the funds to get the best lawyers up there.
Sure, because if we are the public, right, everyone is the public. I mean, it sounds like I think there's a little disconnect when people don't realize that this could actually be you, and if these changes aren't made and you end up in that situation, you could be the next Blaze Levato.
And an additional issue too that I think played out in Blaze's case as well, is DNA testing is not always going to be the thing that can prove someone's innocence. In most cases, it isn't you know, there are other avenues that need to be pursued. And so I think because of the power of these post conviction DNA exonerations and the age of innocence that we're living in, I think there's sometimes a false idea that that's always going
to be able to solve it. And there are people who are really trying to get back into court to fight their convictions and just don't have a way to do that because DNA either didn't play a role in their case, or they did some testing and it didn't lead to clear results that could lead to an exoneration.
And so it's really because the Nevada Supreme Court took her habeas petition very seriously and found issues that merited a post conviction evidentiary hearing that we're here today and those issues didn't have to do with DNA in this case, which is a unique thing.
For our project.
Yes, second trial you end up with the same people from the first trial, which also strikes me as not perfect, you know, because they're coming in with a bias, I mean, not great, and so the results are somewhat predictable. You know. You now have the additional problem, like you said, of a public defender who's almost we've heard this story Unfortunately, too many times a public defender who's not acting in
your best interest in this case for budgetary reasons. What the fuck budgetary reasons when you're talking about somebody's life. I mean, it's just like, uh, yeah, I don't know. That's not okay either. And just for context, I mean, this crime happened in two thousand and one, so we're not talking twenty to ten and out here we are in twenty eighteen. Ultimately, who reached out to the MS Project? What was that like when you How did you find out that we were coming to the rescue.
Well, that's all thanks to Michelle Revel again my mom. She reached out to them. I found out. I think I found out on my birthday.
How did you find out? Did Michelle tell you? Did you get a letter over the phone from MICHELLEP? So Michelle got the letter? Yep. And then what was your reaction?
Cautiously optimistic? You know, at that point I couldn't afford to get my hopes too high because I still had to survive on the inside.
What year was that, twenty sixteen, sixteen? So actually this case moved quickly by our standards, ye, because it usually takes longer and you've been out now for how long?
Sixty three days?
Sixty three days? Wow? Amazing. So you got your day in court again, right, third time around, third times the charm right.
Although this time it was for an evident you're hearing, not a trial.
I want to capture that moment.
Well, I finally got a different judge and I only had one of my original prosecutors to deal with. So I was feeling optimistic about those two things off top, not to mention that I had the dream team. So as things were going and I saw the response of the judge, and I listened to all the testimony from the experts, and I compared both sides, I felt really good.
But I was so scared to get my hopes up because I know how the system works, or at least had worked for me up until that point, and I was terrified to get too excited about it because I didn't want to be devastated, you know.
And from your perspective, Jane, I know you were both in the courtroom. Yes, yes, And what was your feeling. Obviously it's always difficult to me if you're feeling optimistic, you're not going to share that with Blaze. Because for the same reasons we're talking about, right, But did you know you had a winning hand?
I think we went in there confident, knowing that we were very well prepared, that we had some incredible experts on our side, people who were really smart scientists who had looked at her case and had objectively determined individually on their own that there is no way that Blaize Lobado could have committed this crime based on objective signs
of the victim's body. So the issue at the evident you're hearing had to do with time of death, which was a crucial issue at both of her trials, because Blaize had very solid alibi evidence putting her in Panaka for almost the entire day of July eighth. R. Duran Bailey's body is found around ten oh eight pm on
July eighth. Almost that whole day up until the early morning of July eighth, Blaize had alibi evidence putting her three hours away in Panaca, and so the state's theory had been that she had committed this crime in the very early morning hours of July eighth, sometime around one or two in the morning, because that's the only way it could have happened, because they conceded that she was with family and friends three hours away the rest of
the day. And so our experts looked at photographs and the autopsy report and many other reports related to the case and determined, based on how this body had decomposed, and also the total lack of bug activity on the body, the fact that there were no insects, no larvae whatsoever, that this person could have only been dead for probably
a few hours at most, if not less. And the reason that was so significant is because that means factually, objectively, Blaze could not have committed this crime something she always knew, something we knew because we believed in her innocence, but
this showed scientifically that she couldn't have done this. So our hearing had to do with putting on a forensic pathologist, a man named doctor Andrew Baker, and three forensic entomologists, doctor Gail Anderson, doctor Robert Kimsey, and doctor Jeffrey Tomberlin to talk about first of all, how bodies decompose and how this was a body that couldn't have been at this crime scene for that long, and then also how insects are attracted to decomposing bodies, and the fact that
there was no bug activity on this per means he couldn't have been there for very long.
And we know bugs like dumpsters too.
Yes, not to mention that it was July and vegas, which changes the decomposition process because of the temperature and attracts more bucks, right, and.
The body was so brutally beaten that it was sort of ripe for insect activity because there was blood, lots of cuts. That's the sort of thing that insects are
attracted to. And so just to add on to a chance, I think the other thing that gave us confidence during the hearing was and Blaze sort of alluded to this about the judge, was that the judge was sort of asking the right questions and picking up on the right issues and seemed to be getting what we were sort of arguing and presenting, which I think made us feel that, Okay, she's thinking about this the way we are thinking about it, and that's a that's a good sign.
And so the moment comes the arguments are done, you know now that you've presented a very strong case with as you said, the dream team, and now you're going through this again. The moment, right, and what was that moment?
Like, it's really terrible to have your life hanging in the balance and to have to wait for the answer and not know which way it's going to go.
So this was a hearing in front of a judge. But how did that work? So the arguments were finished, prosecutors says whatever they said, You guys said, whatever you said, and then how long do you have to wait for the judge to rule?
So the timeline was that we had the hearing middle of October. We submitted post hearing briefs to sort of make our arguments in writing. That we submitted November one, I think was the deadline, and then the judge came
down with the decision granting us a new trial. That I was saying that we won the hearing right before Christmas, So right before Christmas we knew that we were going to have a new trial, and that the sort of in the prosecutor's court whether or not they actually wanted to have a third trial on this or whether or not that we're going to dismiss the charges. Same prosecutor, yes, same office.
And I think something that's particularly important to know here is, you know, we got the email decision from the judge saying that the charges you know that we should be granted a new trial, that they found that it was an effective assistance of counsel not to call forensic entomologists and pathologists to prove what the time of death would have been in this case. We couldn't reach our client
at the prison. You know, it took us several days to be able to communicate this really exciting news to her that her conviction had been vacated and she'd be granted a new trial. It's not because people at the prison couldn't have gotten the message to her.
It's not because she was.
Hard to reach. They know where she is at all times. It's because nobody wanted to communicate that to her, and so it took probably about forty eight hours before we could actually have a conversation with her. And this is right around the holidays. Obviously we want to get her this good news. So just the inhumanity that she had to deal with on a daily basis and the anxiety of not knowing what's going to happen with her life is incredible.
Do you know how I found out that the charges had business missed?
No, I would love to know.
An officer put a newspaper clipping in my window, woke me up, and I couldn't even like comprehend what it said. I had to illegally obtain our newspaper later on in the day to find out my own fate because they wouldn't allow my attorneys to talk to me.
And that's really what we were, like, really scared of happening. Like we wanted to deliver the news to her. We didn't want people gossiping or telling her in prison about it.
So yeah, and I guess it was on the news, but the cable was out, so I didn't see it.
You're in like a media blackout, yes, and a lawyer black eut. It just doesn't make any sense. But you did find out. I did find out, and then.
And then it took three or four more days for me to be released. They came with the proper documents to the prison and the warden said no, no, no, no, not letting her out.
In order for her to be released from the prison, they had to get a certified copy directly delivered from the court. And because this is around the holidays, things had gotten slowed down a little bit, and so even though we had the certified copies in our hands as lawyers, as members of the bar walking up to the warden, they wouldn't accept it from us because it hadn't yet
gotten received by FedEx from the court. So this is just again another example of the insanity that you have to deal with when you're imprisoned and waiting for your fate to be decided.
They just felt like they hadn't fucked you over enough yet maybe to get a little.
We had to get their last little lugs in.
Yeah, well, you know what, here you are here, I am he who laughed in this case, she who laughed, you know what.
And I still have a smile on my face.
So it's all right, you do it. And I'm going to tell you that I was very taken by this whole scenario and very interested in finding out what had happened, because it just struck me as such an outrageous set of circumstances, and also because you came across in the media that did exist as somebody who was just really want to root for. I mean, you just have a very lovely demeanor thing, and you know, your spirit kind of comes through even in a one dimensional format. Like in the newspaper.
And I think something so remarkable about Blaize is just her concern and her care for others, not only now that she's out, but when she was in. I mean, you talked about, you know, other people you were concerned about in there. Heck, you always asked us on the phone how we were doing and really meant it and wanted to, you know, make sure we were okay as
people that were connected to you. But I think the drive that you've seemed to have since getting out to really make changes and to not forget about the people you left behind is so inspirational and hopefully inspires people listening to get involved in those cases too.
I think it's really important for people to know what's going on inside, because it's not right, it's inhumane, and people are being abused inside the system, not just by wrongful convictions, but just the whole process of incarceration.
We have a tradition here, okay at Wrongful Conviction, which is that at the end of each episode, I like to just turn the microphone over to you and you and you in reverse order and just share any closing thoughts. But before we do that, I want to do something we've never done before, which I'd like to bring someone in the studio out here. So today, Blaze, Yes, we have with us making a special guest appearance someone who is probably the most important person in your life. Is that fair to say?
It's fair to say she's one of the most important people in my life. You know, I'm blessed because I have a whole tribe of people that love me and support me.
Well, your tribe just got bigger today. I want to have you introduce Michelle all Right.
Hello world, to introduce you to my mom, also known as Michelle.
Ravel Well, thank you, sweetheart. People who are listening to this podcast are obviously interested in things like wrongful conviction and how this all takes place. I encourage anyone who has one present itself in their life to not run away, to take advantage of the opportunity of assisting someone who
has no voice to have a voice. And I would also like to a special request of all the journalists I know, pick one case, research it, highlight it, get it out there in the world, and help free these innocent people. There are too many people in prison who don't belong there.
Well, Michelle, I want to thank you for being here and what you've done is extraordinary. It's just an amazing example of citizen activism, which is you know, we can't do without it. You literally saved Blaze's life, and I know she wouldn't be here without you, and I see how she gets talking about you, and that says all I need to know. So I'm glad you're here. Thank you, thank you for sharing your thoughts. And now I'm going to give you both a big hug. Unless you have something else you want.
To say, perfect right.
Non any closing thoughts to share with the audience, anything at all.
I mean, I just think. I mean, Blaze has been here for about a couple of days now. It's just so amazing to see her out and just enjoying life, and her spirits just really inspiring. I said this, I think last night, whatever it is, she has it like that sort of she brings you in. And I think that's why people really bond with Blaze, because she has that.
You love your job, yes I do. Yeah, in some ways we wish we could all be out of business. Like the best thing that could possibly happen would be for the Instance project to be closed, because all these people go home but we know that's not realistic. But in the meantime, we love our job and it's because of people like you. So Jane, Yes.
I'm excited for you, Blaze, to go to the conference, the Innocent Network Conference in a couple of weeks and meet some of your brothers and sisters out there, because I know that as much as we can all talk about this and celebrate you and stand with you, we
don't understand what's happened. And I think that you just have such incredible strength and character and I hope that you're able to let your guard down a little bit in a couple of weeks with those folks and really feel some healing because you deserve that in a big way.
Thank you.
And the Innocent Network Conference, just to put some context, is a conference that we actually started eleven years ago, I think in New York, and it's a it's a conference in which we bring together well, it was originally dozens, now it's hundreds of exoneries for a weekend of healing and hope and strength and just it's an incredible thing to be a part of the amount of energy, positive energy that's generated and the number of dedicated people activists,
social workers, lawyers. It's so many people there who care that it's really a cathartic experience, and so I hope you'll have a great experience that I know you will. Okay, so now we're going to turn it over to you. You can talk about anything you want. The microphone is yours.
I just want to say how happy I am to be free, and how grateful and thankful I am to all the people who have facilitated that. And I want to tell people in the world that it's really important to get involved and to try to make a difference, because we really really need to change our judicial system. It's important for everyone because this could happen to anyone.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. This episode has been a profound experience for me, and I hope it has been for you out there in the audience. So once again I want to thank our distinguished guests, the Innocence Project attorneys on Nonsultan, Jane Putcher, and of course you with you, you radiant little thing that you are, blaze the bottle. Thank you so much.
For being here, thank you for having me, thank you, thank you.
Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Raw Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one