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                  The Associated Press State & Local Wire

The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The
Associated Press.

                   December 11, 2002, Wednesday, BC cycle

SECTION: State and Regional

LENGTH: 699 words

HEADLINE: Judge admits DNA evidence linking accused serial rapist

BYLINE: By DON THOMPSON and DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writers

DATELINE: SACRAMENTO

BODY:
A California judge on Wednesday said prosecutors may use at trial DNA from a
suspected serial rapist even though the evidence was wrongly obtained and
entered into a state-run criminal database.

The decision, upholding key evidence linking Paul Robinson to a series of
1994 rapes here, is believed to be the nation's first case in which a trial
judge allowed a case to proceed based on erroneously obtained DNA evidence.

Sacramento County Judge Peter Mering ruled prosecutors could use the DNA
evidence in trial even though suspect Paul Robinson's genetic profile should
not have been placed into a state-run database that produced a "cold hit"
matching his profile with semen taken from a rape victim.

"This is the first time in the country that this has been brought up like
this," said Michael R. Nelson, Robinson's public defender. Mering ruled that
authorities wrongly took Robinson's blood sample and erroneously put it in
the databank. Still, the judge said, the case can continue because the state
Department of Justice was not acting recklessly when it made the mistakes.

"In this case, two mistakes were made. But I accept that both were good
faith errors," Mering ruled.

Sacramento County prosecutor Anne Marie Schubert was satisfied with the
ruling.

"Hopefully, we're making good law," she said. "If these things come up
again, we'll have something to stand on."

Robinson's attorney said the evidence should have been ruled inadmissible
for trial, meaning that authorities might have had to drop the case.

He said the state Department of Justice, run by Attorney General Bill
Lockyer, is "recklessly running the DNA databank" that has produced at least
200 cold hits since 1999.

Mering's ruling, Nelson said, "won't encourage them to change simple
fundamental practices to ensure the databank law is complied with."

He speculated there may be many genetic profiles wrongly included in the
database and urged the state to weed out those lodged erroneously.

If new criminal cases are brought under similar circumstances, Nelson said,
judges may see a developing pattern and dismiss the charges.

"If they choose to engage in this reckless behavior, they're going to set
themselves up for the possibility they can't use evidence in criminal
cases," he said.

The decision will be appealed if Robinson is found guilty by a jury, Nelson
said. No trial date has been set.

Prosecutors conceded that Robinson's profile was wrongly entered into the
databank for his previous convictions of being in possession of stolen
property and assault. Generally, only major felonies and sexual assault
convictions qualify as crimes for a criminal's DNA to be entered into
California's databank containing thousands of genetic profiles.

But authorities said the evidence linking Robinson to perhaps as many as
four rapes should not be jeopardized over the mix-up.

"We're saying it was a good faith mistake," said Manuel Valencia, a Lockyer
spokesman.

Wednesday's legal developments in Robinson's case are the culmination of two
years' of unprecedented legal wrangling.

Last year, the California Supreme Court declined to dismiss the charges
against Robinson, who was the nation's first suspect arrested under a
warrant that lacked his name or description, identifying him solely by
genetic code.

Without comment, the Supreme Court declined to review an earlier decision by
Sacramento County Judge Tani Cantil-Sakauye to uphold the arrest warrant in
a decision the judge acknowledged was treading on "uncharted water."

The arrest warrant in question was issued in August 2000, days before the
six-year statute of limitations would have expired on the 1994 rape of a
Sacramento woman at her apartment building. In an unorthodox use of science
to sidestep the statute of limitations, the warrant was issued not against a
known suspect, but against a genetic code of the semen sample taken six
years earlier from the woman.

A month later, after the statute of limitations would have expired, the DNA
sample was matched to Robinson. At the time, Robinson's different lawyers
did dispute whether Robinson's DNA was incorrectly entered into the
databank.

LOAD-DATE: December 12, 2002