Judge orders trial on release of Kevin Coe

The legal battle over South Hill rapist Kevin Coe will be fought long before a jury is seated to decide whether he ever again becomes a free man.

Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor ruled Tuesday that the state had established a legal basis to proceed to a trial set for July 16. The state will try to show that 59-year-old Coe should be incarcerated in a secure mental health facility on McNeil Island.

But O’Connor first will be asked to decide which of 53 alleged sexual assaults that psychologist Dr. Amy Phenix believes Coe committed will be admissible at the trial seeking to civilly commit Coe as a sexually violent predator.

Defense attorney Tim Trageser pointed out that Coe was convicted only of one rape, even though 22 other rape victims identified Coe and 30 other sexual assaults were committed in a similar fashion to the one that resulted in his 25-year prison sentence.

“We will have some pre-trial motions asking the judge to preclude any cases for which Coe was not convicted,” Trageser said.

“The state is speculating that he is responsible for these crimes. There really is no proof he is involved in these (uncharged cases) other than somebody the state hired who said this was a signature Coe crime.”

If the state succeeds, Trageser said it could turn a trial expected to take weeks into an ordeal that lasts months.

“I don’t think it is any secret that one of the primary issues of this case will be the admissibility of the un-adjudicated cases,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Bowers said. “I’m sure Mr. Trageser will try to keep them out and we will fight that because we feel that is relevant information that the jury should hear.”

Trageser said he will have his own expert witness to counter the findings by Phenix, who testified that she believes Coe’s desire for rape is stronger than his desire to be free.

“We are going to fight this at every stage,” he said. “We could have 50 mini-trials.”

O’Connor scheduled a Jan. 12 hearing for attorneys to begin the process of shaping the evidence that will be presented at trial.

Bowers said state prosecutors must show by a preponderance of the evidence that Coe committed the list of crimes they want to use in their case.

Trageser “may be blowing it out of proportion a bit,” he said.

Bowers said the state will try to have 23 cases introduced.

“Pre-trial proceedings in this case are going to be extremely crucial,” he said.

The legal battle started after Coe was arrested in 1981. Donald Brockett, who was Spokane County prosecutor at the time, charged him with six rapes even though Spokane police detectives suspected him of dozens.

The first jury convicted Coe on four counts of rape. However, two rounds of appeals whittled those down to one rape conviction because detectives used hypnosis to interview witnesses and victims.

Coe spent 25 years in prison and was nine days away from his release when state Attorney General Rob McKenna announced on Aug. 30 the state would try to civilly commit Coe as a sexually violent predator.

Earlier Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Malcolm Ross gave the closing statement seeking to convince O’Connor to send the matter to trial.

“The picture that emerges … is a level of sexual deviance and a degree of danger that is rarely seen,” Ross said. “We would assert that the evidence overwhelmingly establishes probable cause to believe that Mr. Coe is a sexually violent predator.”

Trageser attacked the law that established the sexually violent predator commitment process.

“There is nothing extraordinary about these sex offenses that would make Mr. Coe an extraordinary sex offender except the frequency,” he said. “But Mr. Coe is only convicted of one offense.” Trageser added: “And if we do get to detention he most certainly will die there because nobody ever leaves the island.”

Coe did not commit any new offenses while he was briefly free during his first set of trials and he has not sexually assaulted anyone in 25 years in prison, Trageser argued.

Trageser also ripped the findings of Phenix, who concluded that Coe suffers from mental abnormalities and personality disorders that make him a serious risk of raping again if released.

And he denied the dozens of cases that Phenix listed were committed by Coe.

“I don’t mean to insult the victims in this case because they were all victimized,” Trageser said. “But the alleged rapes had a low level of violence.”

Ross said he doesn’t understand how Trageser can make that claim.

“This case is about mental illness and … Mr. Coe’s risk of committing a crime in the future,” he said. “It is (Phenix’s) opinion that these disorders make him likely to rape another stranger if released.”