Torture Verdicts Set 2 Precedents : Courts: 2 Santa Ana men are the first to be convicted of the charge in county, and their jury was the first to consider DNA evidence. Said one horrified panelist of the defendants, ‘They are slime.’

A horrified jury established separate precedents Wednesday when it convicted two Santa Ana men of sodomy and torture in a gruesome sexual attack of an Orange woman who was stabbed repeatedly while her bound and gagged husband looked on helplessly.

“They are slime,” said juror Linda Lex of Irvine in describing the two defendants. “I hope they are sent away for life.”

The trial of Alfredo Martinez and Joel Mojica was the first in Orange County in which prosecutors had been able to put before a jury DNA evidence, a new breakthrough in identifying suspects through blood and semen samples.

It was also the first time that the county had charged anyone with torture, a new penal code statute passed by the Legislature last year, two weeks before the Orange woman was attacked. In the past, torture could only be used as a special circumstance to elevate a murder case to a capital case.

Martinez, 25, and Mojica, 21, could be sentenced to life in prison because of the torture conviction. But that would also mean they could have their first parole hearing after seven years.

“I think we’re going to see that a torture sentence will amount to at least 25 years, which is pretty good,” predicted Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Jacobs, who prosecuted the two.

Three men broke into the newlywed couple’s Orange home about 2 a.m. on June 17, 1990, waking them in their bed. The woman was forced into repeated sexual acts and then stabbed eight times, with one of the wounds puncturing a lung. Several times she was stabbed as punishment when her husband tried to fight his bindings to assist her, prosecutors alleged.

A third suspect, 34-year-old Jose Guerrero, was arrested, but charges were dismissed for insufficient evidence after the husband and wife were unable to identify him. Guerrero was identified by the other two defendants, however, as the third party inside the house. Jacobs said he has not given up trying to make a case against Guerrero, who the prosecutor said is still in the neighborhood.

Martinez admitted he had broken into the house through a bathroom window to steal from the couple, but denied he attacked the woman. In a statement to police, he identified Mojica as the one who stabbed her. But when Martinez testified during the trial, he denied knowing anything about a stabbing.

Mojica, who did not testify, told police that he thought Martinez had gone into the house to meet some friends. Mojica said he went inside through the front door, but then left when he saw “a problem” inside.

The woman identified Martinez, but because of a legal snafu, her identification of Mojica was not accepted by the court.

“The crime was unbelievable,” said Mary Tobin, the jury forewoman. “It’s certainly taught me to be more careful about locking up my house at night.”

Although jurors cringed at discussing the details of the crime, they gladly offered their thoughts about the DNA evidence, which was presented only against Martinez.

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is found in blood and other body fluids and carries a person’s unique genetic coding. Experts say the odds of two people having the same DNA--except for identical twins--are usually one in several billion. In this case, semen found at the scene was tested against a blood sample from Martinez.

“The DNA evidence was difficult to follow, but once we understood it, it was very overwhelming evidence,” said juror Lex.

Prosecutor Jacobs, who used numerous visual aids, including a laser demonstration to present the DNA evidence, spent half an hour after the verdict discussing it with all 12 jurors.

“It’s important for us to know that a jury understood DNA, and that we weren’t talking over their heads,” Jacobs said.

The DNA evidence in this case was the first from Orange County’s new DNA crime lab to reach a jury. DNA evidence in three other cases, including one involving the Orange County lab, has been permitted by the courts to be presented to juries. But in each of those cases, the defendant pleaded guilty rather than face a trial.