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If the Pima County Public Defender's Office is successful, numerous "cold case" suspects — perhaps dozens, perhaps hundreds — arrested on DNA evidence across the state may never face a jury.

Deputy Public Defender Walt Palser will ask the Arizona Court of Appeals Wednesday to dismiss two 1994 sexual assault cases because the statute of limitations had expired before authorities matched DNA samples from the crimes to the suspects' DNA, which they also had for years.

Exactly how many cases could be affected by the decision is unclear. The Pima County Attorney's Office is reviewing 300 to 400 unsolved cases. But the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Tucson Police Department were unable or unwilling to say how many pieces of DNA evidence they're holding in connection with those cases.

Palser and Deputy Pima County Attorney Shawn Jensvold will ask the Court of Appeals to consider when the statute-of-limitations clock should start ticking on some pre-1997 crimes.

Palser and the Public Defender's Office contend the clock starts when the crime occurs.

Jensvold and the County Attorney's Office say it's when a suspect has been identified.

The decision would apply only to crimes committed before the statute-of-limitations law was changed in 1997.

Tucson police Sgt. Mark Robinson said Wednesday that no one from the department would be available for at least a week to say how many pieces of DNA evidence the police lab may have, or how many are tied to pre-1997 cases.

The DPS crime lab performs DNA analysis for dozens of law enforcement agencies throughout the state.

DPS Sgt. Harold Sanders said crime lab officials prefer not to answer questions on the number of cases pending analysis for fear of being accused of being inefficient.

The Court of Appeals agreed to look into the statute-of-limitations issue as a result of two recent Pima County cases.

Palser and a fellow public defender, Chiko Makanjuola-Oyolu, both have cases in which men are accused of raping women in 1994, and both suspects were arrested in February as a result of DNA matches.

The defense attorneys tried unsuccessfully to get Pima County Superior Court judges to dismiss the cases, so they have asked the Court of Appeals to address the statute-of-limitations issue.

Palser said the Court of Appeals could tailor its decision solely around the two cases at hand, or it could issue a sweeping opinion.

If it's the latter, the ramifications could be "huge" — especially if the Court of Appeals rules the statute of limitations starts when the crime occurs, Palser said.

David Berkman, the chief criminal-case deputy with the County Attorney's Office, called it a "significant issue" but declined to comment further, citing the upcoming arguments.

In Palser's case, the victim woke up to a knife at her throat and was forced to perform sex acts for two hours. The attacker let her go to work when her alarm clock went off.

In Makanjuola-Oyolu's case, the victim was sexually assaulted while walking to work.

Palser's client, Olin Gene Taylor, 50, and Makanjuola-Oyolu's client, John Adrian Johnson, 39, were indicted this past spring, nearly 12 years after the fact.

However, in 1994, prosecutors were given only seven years to indict suspects accused of Class 2 felonies, such as sexual assault.

If prosecutors wanted to try Taylor and Johnson, they should have indicted them before 2001, Palser says.

Since they didn't, the defense attorneys want the cases dismissed.

Prosecutors contend they didn't even know who Taylor was until Oct. 31, 2005.

That was the day DNA collected from the crime scene was entered into a national database run by the FBI and it was matched to Taylor's DNA, which had been entered into the database as a result of an unrelated conviction.

Palser contends authorities could have identified a suspect in 1994, had they dusted for fingerprints at the victim's house, which they did not. Or they could have identified a suspect if they'd analyzed the DNA from the case back then, too, but they didn't, Palser said.

Johnson wasn't identified as a suspect until this April, when the DNA in the rape case was entered into CODIS, the national database, and matched his.

Again, the DNA from that rape case could have been analyzed years earlier, says Makanjuola-Oyolu, Johnson's attorney.

Moreover, Johnson's DNA was actually in the system even earlier than April 2006, Makanjuola-Oyolu wrote in court documents. It was entered into the system in July 2004 as a result of a burglary conviction.

In response, Jensvold and co-counsel Nanette Morrow have filed court arguments that CODIS — the FBI's Combined DNA Index System — wasn't in operation until 1998 and the Tucson Police Department's crime lab wasn't connected to CODIS until November 2000.

"Prior to that time, there was no reasonable method in place by which the TPD crime laboratory personnel could have linked the defendant(s) to the male DNA profile(s) in (these) cases," Morrow wrote.

The delay between November 2000, when the lab connected to CODIS, and when the men's DNA was entered into CODIS was a result of changes in the type of DNA testing that was being done and a backlog of samples that needed to be tested and entered into the database, Morrow said.

Palser said legislators created statutes of limitations for two reasons — to make sure the police investigate crimes promptly and diligently, and to ensure suspects won't have to worry about lost evidence, foggy memories and dead witnesses if they are indicted years after the fact.

"Case law says the statute of limitations should be construed liberally in favor of the accused," Palser said.

In the Taylor case, evidence and files are missing and the lead detective is gone, Palser said. There's always a chance evidence that was lost could help prove a defendant's innocence, he said.

The Court of Appeals decision won't impact homicide cases, because there is no statute of limitations for murder, Palser said.

However, if a suspect is tied to a homicide case in conjunction with another charge, such as burglary or aggravated assault, which depends on DNA evidence, the less-serious charges could be thrown out, weakening the homicide case.

In fact, on Oct. 6 Palser filed a motion to dismiss charges against Lorenzo Abeyta because the statute of limitations had expired.

Abeyta was indicted in July on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated assault, robbery and burglary in a 1991 attack on Amado Cota-Robles, 80.

Cota-Robles, who lived alone, was attacked by robbers who broke in through a window between 2 and 2:30 a.m.

The robbers used a telephone cord to tie him up and kicked him in the head several times before ransacking his home.

Cota-Robles died in December 1997, and his death was ruled a homicide.

Abeyta, 39, was indicted after authorities said DNA tied him to the crime scene and Cota-Robles' stolen car.

Marty Pinales, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the statute of limitations is to be taken seriously.

"They're arbitrary dates set by the Legislature in order to create due process. A reasonable period of time has to be set so defendants can properly defend themselves," Pinales said.

Even if a photograph of a suspect actually committing a crime surfaced, that suspect should not be tried if the statute of limitations is expired, Pinales said.

If people are upset by that, Pinales said, they should work to change the law.