The state’s highest court ruled today that prosecutors may use an unidentified assailant’s unique genetic profile to secure an indictment, then amend the indictment to reflect his or her true name even after the statute of limitations expires, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

That decision sets the stage for JERRY DIXON (D.O.B. 4/19/73) of Dorchester to stand trial for two violent 1991 rapes in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.

Using DNA evidence recovered from the victims, Suffolk prosecutors indicted the then-unknown assailant in 2006 as “John Doe,” further identifying the assailant by his physical description and unique genetic profile. The indictment was returned just days before the 15-year statute of limitations on rape expired.

Two years later, after Dixon was identified through a match by the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, Conley’s office amended the indictments to reflect his true identity.

After Dixon was arraigned, a Suffolk Superior Court judge reported to the Massachusetts Appeals Court the question of whether the statute of limitations barred Dixon from prosecution when the indictments did not identify the assailant by name until after it expired. The Supreme Judicial Court transferred the question on its own motion.

“Our answer to the reported question is, ‘No,’” Justice Robert Cordy wrote for the unanimous court.

“Given the frequency with which we use DNA evidence in the 21st century, there’s no question this issue will be raised again,” Conley said. “This decision brings Massachusetts law up to speed with a field of science that advances every day.”

Dixon is charged with four counts of aggravated rape, three counts of rape, and related offenses for the incidents in question. Those incidents include the March 20, 1991, rape and beating of an 18-year-old Roxbury woman in a wooded area near Townsend Street and the July 13, 1991, rape and beating of a young woman, then 24 and a Medford resident, behind an Amory Street building in Jamaica Plain.

Dixon allegedly approached the Roxbury victim as she waited at a bus stop, put a knife to her back, and forced her to a nearby wooded area where he beat her and sexually assaulted her for nearly two hours, at times putting the knife to her neck. He fled after robbing her of money and jewelry.

The Jamaica Plain victim was also threatened with a knife and raped during a 45-minute attack that began after she asked Dixon for directions to a nearby art shop; after raping her, rifling through her purse, and threatening her with harm if she screamed, he fled the scene.

Both victims immediately notified police of the attacks and were taken to area hospitals for examination and treatment. Biological material was collected for sexual assault evidence kits that were packaged, preserved, and turned over to Boston Police for storage under laboratory conditions.

In 2004, Boston Police and Suffolk prosecutors undertook a project that re-examined older sexual assaults in hopes that DNA evidence – then newly admissible in Massachusetts courts – might lead to arrests and prosecutions in unsolved cases. The DNA recovered from the Roxbury rape, the Jamaica Plain rape, and others were submitted to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, a computerized database of thousands of DNA profiles from unsolved crimes and known offenders.

That testing led to the exoneration of Anthony Powell, who served 12 years in prison for the Roxbury rape after his erroneous conviction at a 1992 trial.

The DNA profiles submitted to CODIS did not match any known offenders but did match one another. Though they did not have the rapist’s name, Suffolk prosecutors indicted his unique DNA profile in 2006.

Dixon was convicted in 2007 of operating after suspension, failure to stop for police, and threats to commit a crime. Following a brief period of incarceration, he was required to give a DNA sample because of a 1991 armed robbery conviction. That sample was entered into the CODIS database, which in 2008 connected him to the unsolved rapes. He was arrested shortly thereafter.

First Assistant District Attorney Josh Wall is prosecuting the case. Attorney Veronica White represents Dixon. The case is due back in court on Dec. 22.