Kirstin Lobato is handcuffed in District Court on Friday after her retrial in a 2001 slaying. She was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. A jury in 2002 convicted her of first-degree murder. Photo by Ronda Churchill.

When Kirstin Lobato went to trial in 2002 in the slaying and mutilation of a homeless man, she was found guilty of first-degree murder, a conviction that carried a minimum 40 years in prison.

A second jury saw it differently Friday and convicted Lobato of voluntary manslaughter, a crime that carries a prison term of eight to 20 years.

"In my opinion, it was certainly a first-degree murder case," William Kephart, chief deputy district attorney, said after the jury came back with its decision following about 12 hours of deliberation.

Defense attorney David Schieck suggested that another appeal was coming and said jurors had simply reached "middle ground" in a case in which he says Lobato had an alibi.

Lobato, 23, of Panaca, was charged with murder and the sexual penetration of a corpse in the July 8, 2001, death of Duran Bailey, 44, who was found near a trash bin in Las Vegas with his penis cut off and his anus stabbed.

Lobato's defense team, which persuaded the Nevada Supreme Court in 2004 to order a new trial, hoped to show the jury that she didn't know Bailey and wasn't in Las Vegas when the slaying occurred.

But authorities believe Lobato was on a three-day methamphetamine binge when she approached Bailey, who was known to trade drugs for sex, in the early morning hours in a parking lot at Wynn and Flamingo roads.

Bailey lived in a nearby trash bin, where his body was found.

Prosecutor Sandra DiGiacomo told jurors it was possible that after the killing, at about 3:50 a.m., Lobato ditched her bloody clothes and a knife and left for Panaca, 160 miles north of Las Vegas, in time for people to see her there.

The defense presented a handful of Panaca residents who said they saw Lobato on July 8, 2001, including her stepmother, who said she saw Lobato asleep on the couch about 5:30 a.m. as she went to work that morning.

Schieck said he had felt confident the defense team had established a credible alibi.

Some jurors must not have believed it, he said.

"In the end, they reached a middle ground," he said. "It's almost impossible to establish a concrete alibi when people sleep at night."

Prosecutors noted that some of those who claimed to have seen Lobato that day didn't testify at the first trial.

They told jurors that Lobato, a victim of rape and sexual abuse throughout her adolescence, had Bailey's pants down and was about to perform oral sex. But her rage over her previous abuse incited her to stab him in the groin area with a knife her father had given her, prosecutors said. She continued to slash and then went to her car, retrieved a baseball bat and beat him. She cut an artery in his neck and, once he was dead, cut off his penis, prosecutors said.

"This case isn't voluntary manslaughter -- the extent of the injuries, the rage that was involved," Kephart said afterward. "And then we have to try it again when we've already proven it once."

In trial, Kephart relied heavily on Lobato's statements to the police and to friends in Panaca. She had told friends she had cut off the penis of a Las Vegas man who had sexually assaulted her. One of those confidants, a teacher, later tipped police. But the teacher, Dixie Tienken, told the jury in the retrial that she thought Lobato had said the attack happened much earlier than July and that Lobato had left her attacker alive.

Lobato "was talking about a different incident," Schieck said.

The defense said Lobato was attacked at a Budget Suites near Boulder Highway over a Memorial Day weekend by a man who tried to rape her. Defense attorneys said she then took her knife, slashed at his penis and ran to her car.

The defense also noted that Bailey had raped another woman, who is now deceased, a week before his death and that that victim, or someone who knew her, could have killed Bailey.

Schieck said police did shoddy investigative work and made a snap judgment to arrest his client.

Lobato, who was out on bond before and during the trial, wept after the verdict was read. During closing arguments Thursday night, she shook her head violently at some of Kephart's allegations. At one point, tears were running down her face.

Her friends who testified noted that Lobato looks far different now than she did in 2001, when she was a skinny, bleach-blond, short-haired 18-year-old who most people in the small town of Panaca knew had a drug problem.

She has gathered a throng of supporters and well wishers through the Internet, largely on the site justice4kirstin.com.

Schieck said he has several viable appeal issues in mind.

Lobato is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 21. She also faces five years to life with the possibility of parole or five to 20 years for the sexual penetration of a corpse conviction. The second sentence can be imposed concurrently with or consecutively to the manslaughter sentence.

Lobato has already served four years in prison.