DNA Prints Help Win Conviction in 2 Rapes : Law: Criminal trial was the first in L.A. County to allow genetic evidence.

In the first Los Angeles County criminal case to employ controversial DNA evidence, a 33-year-old man was found guilty Thursday of sexually assaulting two women, and jurors said later the verdict was based in part on so-called “genetic fingerprints” used to identify the defendant as the victims’ assailant.

After six days of deliberations and a two-month trial that included elaborate technical testimony from some of the world’s top DNA experts, a Van Nuys Superior Court jury found Henry Wilds guilty of 10 counts of rape, robbery, forcible oral copulation and burglary. The counts stemmed from two attacks in North Hollywood.

Without the DNA evidence, the jury probably would have convicted Wilds only on one burglary count, jury foreman Patrick Shannon said. Even with the DNA evidence, the jury nearly deadlocked because one member was skeptical about the technique, said Shannon, a systems programmer with the Department of Water and Power.

In genetic fingerprinting, DNA samples taken from evidence at a crime scene are analyzed and compared to DNA samples taken from a suspect’s blood. The odds are then determined against another individual having the same pattern.

Over defense objections, prosecutors obtained a court order to compare the DNA coding in samples of Wilds’ blood to that of sperm found in the two victims’ bodies. Maryland-based Sylmar Diagnostics, which performed the test, said there was only an infinitesimal chance that the sperm samples were not from Wilds.

“I think this means that DNA evidence is very convincing evidence for a jury,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Kahn, who prosecuted Wilds. Wilds’ attorney, Ralph J. Novotney Jr., was out of town attending a DNA seminar. His associate, Bruce Young, who appeared at the court hearing, said he was not familiar enough with the evidence to comment.

The trial followed an even more lengthy hearing to determine whether DNA evidence is reliable enough and respected enough in the scientific community to be admissible as evidence under California law. The prosecutor, defense attorney and judge all said they “struggled with” the intricate scientific concepts.

Some experts claim that except for identical twins, the chances against two people having identical DNA structure are more than a billion to one. However, genetic fingerprinting has been criticized by some scientists as unreliable.

Developed four years ago in Great Britain, DNA analysis is expected to someday become as important a forensic technique--if not more so--as fingerprinting, Novotney and Kahn said. DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid, is found in all human tissue cells, such as blood, hair, skin and semen. Scientists say the genetic makeup of tissue can be translated into intricate DNA patterns that resemble supermarket bar codes.

Juror William Cowell said that although he understood the basics of the technique, he and others on the panel found “the highly technical parts of it very confusing.” Several jurors said they relied heavily on testimony from prosecution experts, whom they considered to be more credible than defense experts.

Wilds was accused of assaulting and robbing a 30-year-old woman on Dec. 26, 1986, in the underground garage of her apartment building, and of a nearly identical attack on a 27-year-old woman Feb. 22, 1987. Both attacks occurred in North Hollywood. He was arrested by Los Angeles police in April, 1987, after allegedly following a 28-year-old North Hollywood woman into the underground parking lot of her apartment building.

In September, a 35-year-old Ventura woman became the first person in California to be convicted with genetic evidence after prosecutors used the DNA patterns in 15 strands of hair as evidence that she fatally stabbed a man at a Ventura hamburger stand in 1988. About 30 states now allow use of DNA evidence, Kahn said.

Although appeals are pending, no higher court has yet ruled on the technique’s admissibility in trials.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge James. M. Coleman scheduled Wilds’ sentencing for April 20. Prosecutors said that Wilds faces a maximum sentence of 53 years in prison.