MCPHERSON ? Another Kansas judge has dismissed a rape case against a death row inmate who is believed to be the first person in the nation whose genetic code was charged with a crime.

In dismissing the case Wednesday, McPherson County Judge Richard Walker said the state took too long to charge Douglas Belt, 43.

Belt, who was sentenced to death a year ago for killing and beheading a Wichita housekeeper, was charged in 1991 as “John Doe” by McPherson County Atty. Ty Kaufman.

Kaufman, whose only evidence in a series of rape cases was the DNA of the alleged attacker, had to file charges before the statute of limitations ran out. He filed what has become known as a “John Doe” warrant charging the person to whom the DNA belonged with the crime. John Doe warrants also were filed in Saline, Thomas and Reno counties in the 1990s after DNA tests indicated the same person was responsible for all of the crimes.

Earlier this month, Reno County Judge Steven Becker dismissed a single count of rape, two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy and one count of aggravated burglary for an attack of a woman in her mobile home in August 1994. Becker said the warrant used to arrest and charge Belt with that crime was too vague and the statute of limitations had expired.

A 2002 American University Law Review article lists the 1991 McPherson County case as the first “John Doe” indictment of its kind in the nation.

It wasn’t until 2003 – long after the statute of limitations would have expired in the rape cases – that Belt was identified as the person whose DNA was found at the crime scenes. That same year, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation acknowledged Belt was mistakenly cleared of a rape when another person’s DNA sample was accidentally labeled with his name in an agency lab. His own sample had been labeled “unknown.”

In the McPherson rapes, Walker ruled that Belt’s rights were violated because the KBI’s mistake had led to a delay in prosecution.

Marc Bennett, an assistant Sedgwick County district attorney assigned as special prosecutor in the rapes, said he hopes the Kansas Supreme Court will eventually rule on the issues raised in Belt’s cases.