Rapist fights sexual-predator designation

The Seattle Times ^ | Monday, December 18, 2006 - 12:00 AM | JOHN K. WILEY

[Sopater]

Kevin Coe spent the past 25 years in prison after being convicted in Spokane's South Hill rapist case. Today, he faces a hearing that could lead to him being declared a sexually violent predator and locked up for the rest of his life at McNeil Island.

The hearing before Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O'Connor is the first step toward a civil trial that will determine whether Coe — formerly inmate No. 279538 at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla — changes his permanent address to the state's Special Commitment Center.

Coe's case became the basis for a nationally acclaimed book and a made-for-television movie.

Malcolm Ross, an assistant state attorney general, said Coe's case is little different from more than 200 others that have resulted in civil commitments — except for the intense media scrutiny it has generated.

"It's high profile. There's just a lot of attention paid to it," he said.

The nearly 67,000 pages of police reports, legal, prison, medical and mental-health records reviewed by the state's sexual-deviancy unit are about 50 times as many documents as are reviewed in a typical case.

Coe has ceased being a prisoner of the Department of Corrections. A civil commitment would make him a ward of the Department of Social and Health Services, which oversees the state's mental-health system.

Today's hearing is to allow Coe's lawyer, Tim Trageser, opportunity to refute the state's contention that Coe is mentally ill and should face a civil-commitment trial.

Trageser said Friday he will attack the lengthy psychological report on which the state is basing its case because it relies on unproven allegations and information that is more than 25 years old.

"If he truly was a serial rapist, he would have exhibited symptomology over the 25 years he spent in prison,"

[Sopater]

Between 1978 and 1981 Spokane police attributed at least 43 sexual attacks to the South Hill rapist, although more were reported. Investigators arrested Coe early in 1981, and he was charged with six rapes. A jury convicted him of four counts of first-degree rape.

[snip]

Coe, 59, has always maintained his innocence and refused prison therapy sessions that could have resulted in his early release, or transfer to a lower-security prison.

They don't say much about the evidence that was used to convict him, but with over 10 rapes per year occuring in Spokane's South Hill over a 4 year period, it's hard to imagine that it was a coincedence that they just stopped after Coe was arrested...

[weegee]

They don't say much about the evidence that was used to convict him, but with over 10 rapes per year occuring in Spokane's South Hill over a 4 year period, it's hard to imagine that it was a coincedence that they just stopped after Coe was arrested...

"...If he truly was a serial rapist, he would have exhibited symptomology over the 25 years he spent in prison,"

The head shrinks find it easier to believe that this man was wrongly convicted AND that the real rapist has learned to supress his impulses that to believe that the convicted man has run out of rape targets.

[Disambiguator]

"If he truly was a serial rapist, he would have exhibited symptomology over the 25 years he spent in prison,"

Does this mean that since he didn't rape his fellow prisoners that he is "rehabilitated"? Or does it mean that he didn't try to rape any more women?

[Fierce Allegiance]

[Ouderkirk]

this used to be a capital crime.

Just shoot the POS and all of this becomes moot

[JesusBmyGod]

I lived in Spokane during this period. There is no doubt that he was the South Hill rapist. The physical evidence and eye witness testimony made the case. Not to mention that when he was finally picked up he was on the prowl for another victim. He is a pig and prison is where he needs to be until he dies.

[HOTTIEBOY]

What would happen - God forbid - if the defense attorney's daughter was raped by the very man that the defense attorney worked to make free?

It seems I read a story once where a career criminal was released on a technicality of some sort and through random coincidence broke into someone's home ultimately killing the mother in the home. The home was the defense attorney that freed the man.

[Gay State Conservative]

My first question is....has this guy's DNA ever been linked to any of the rapes for which he was convicted? If not the trial to make him a ward of the Dept of Mental Health might be.....interesting.

[Gay State Conservative]

this used to be a capital crime.

As tempting as it is to give rapists the chair it's not a good idea because if you do you give the rapist a strong motive to kill his victim.

[Grim]

Here he is. Looks like a semi-normal person.

[Fudd]

Don't read this as a defense of this a******. If it were up to me, he would have had his neck stretched the morning after his conviction.

The law says that, after he served his time, he is supposed to be locked up as a predator. Was this law in force at the time of his conviction? In other words, did the rules of the game change? Is it right to change the terms of his incarceration in the middle of his sentence? I would argue that the man served the terms of his sentence (however wrong it was), and should be released according to the sentence imposed at the time.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Then ensure all murderers are given the chair. In 30 days.

[Señor Zorro]

I second on both counts.

[workerbee]

Sounds like an urban legend to me, but who knows?

Myself, I'm all for life w/o parole for rapists.

[willyd]

If anyone is unsure of this man's innocence.... Click Here

[HOTTIEBOY]

You are very compassionate.

Castration seems better to me....

[Killborn]

Rapist fights to live.

>spit< I wish.

[Ouderkirk]

Agreed

[Gay State Conservative]

Then ensure all murderers are given the chair. In 30 days.

You missed the point.If the penalty for rape and murder is death,then the rapist has much to gain (a silent victim) and nothing to lose by killing her.

[the OlLine Rebel]

And he loses his life.

I miss the 18th century.