Suspect in Spokane rapes facing civil trial

no i don't think the other charges warrant lifetime lockups, but rapists and childmolesters should be castrated, and jailed indefinetly or executed, no rehabilitation, no mercy because they don't deserve any. burn in hell you inhuman garbage. any 1 who defends them is probably 1 themselves and have no soul, and deserve the crimes to be visited upon them since they think it is not such a big deal

I'm definately not defending them. They deserve the worst. I just hope the crooked DA's, who can be just wicked as the criminals themselves, aren't able to use this to keep anyone convicted of any crime imprisoned indefinately.

since you think he should be let free, they should make him your neighbour so that it can be your mom/daughter/sister instead of some undeserving person. they shouldnt lock him up again you are right, they should execute this trash

The reason he was put in prison instead of a mental institution is because it's cheaper. 99% of the criminally insane are in prison instead of mental institutions because, even though it costs tax payers money to house a prisoner, it costs much more to keep them in a mental institution.

Yeah, the case does have the stink of media hype clinging all over it. The article doen't mention any tangible evidence at all. For being such a prolific attacker they couldn't make ANY other cases stick against him?

TELL THAT TO THE WOMEN HE RAPED WHO LIVE EVERY DAY WONDERING IF IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN!!!
He did the time and that is all there is to it..... What a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jbdaad, lay off the BS political spouts. Several other states HAVE set up similar programs, and did so under your hero of Clinton.

But I agree. The man did his time, and the state can not now come back and say they are extending his sentence. Yeah, I might not be happy about his being out, but that's life.

I like joking about Bush. I agree it is the law. I don`t like states making them ( the laws ) up as they go along. They tend to go way out of wack.

Hooray! Please use your enthusiasm to support more stringent laws. That way, we could live in a society that is safe for everyone.

PS. Your exact argument was used to defend lynchings.

I'm OK with lynching a violent sex offender. What's the problem??

Why should they have to be lynched? If you think that hanging is a good penalty for this crime, agitate for it. Get out and embarrass politicians to vote for what you think is right.

One of the problems is our courts are protecting the wrong people. We need to address this imbalance with tougher sentencing. Life without the possibility of parole is underutilized in these cases. Castration for repeat violent offenders should also be considered. The issue of throwing sexual offenders into general population and allowing for mob justice is overboard in the other direction. We should not (as a civilized society seeking greater justice) answer cruelty with more violence. We should answer cruelty with justice.

M-A-R-Y-L-A-N-D

O-B-A-M-A

That new law allowing the State to continue to imprison people after they have served their sentences is not Constitutional. As was pointed out, where will it lead? If some prosecutor is allowed to decide a person is not fit to be released after he has served his time, who's next? A prosecutor has no right to deprive this man of his freedom now, for he is not qualified to make that determination; and it concerns me greatly that this is happening. Who's next? Sounds to me like the State of Washington has a dictatorship going and it needs to be investigated. Others in Washington have been recommitted based on this law, and this should not be allowed.
Furthermore, since there was no DNA to prove he was guilty and the man has refused parole hearings that may have resulted in his early release if he admitted his supposed guilt, there is the possibility he may be innocent. Even if he were guilty, he has paid the price for what he did and should be freed.

VIOLENT sexual predators should be put to death. That way we wouldn't really need a predator registry, now would we?
Besides, you're right. Garbage in, garbage out. Guys that solicit prostitutes or teenage boys that had consensual sex with their girlfriends shouldn't qualify for the list, but they do. And the fact that states refuse to SHARE the information pretty much makes it useless. We've had dozens of child rape/murders in Fla that the sick bastard ran from other states (plural in some cases) to avoid the registry. Living under their own names, some even having been arrested for other offenses- but no one bothers to check to see if some other state wants them for something.

How could they build a new society if they are eunichs? Ha ha ha!

LOL....Chronologically or emotionally? I think it's an 18 and 10 split. I'm sure he'll make a great father. Too bad he said he didn't want kids.

DNA tests have been done and recently with the latest technology. Coe is the rapist. There is currently litigation to have the DNA results inadmissable in hearings regarding delaying his release. Why not? I guess facts shouldn't get in the way of releasing a poor hard done by mistreated criminal/rapist to the streets again. Evidently, we should feel sorry for the poor boy as his up-bringing might have been more difficult than reported and somebody probably made fun of him in school.

As Washington State does have legal conceal and carry, when he gets out I hope he try to rape a chick who carries a 357mag.

Gregg - - I suggest a .380 with jacketed hollow points - - - easier to conceal in pocket or purse..

Your right on target though - very few rapists will actually rape a woman who fights back or screams loud enough to be heard by others... States where women are licensed to carry - and do carry seem to have lower rates of rape then states where women cannot carry to defend themselves..

I have patiently read all the negative comments about Washington state's civil commitment law that sometimes allows the state to lock people up indefinitely. And I can understand some of your comparisons to double-jeopardy, constitutional issues, etc. When this law was first passed, I'll admit I thought those same things. I thought it could be unconstitutional as well. But I changed my mind.

Think of it this way. If you have a defendant in a criminal case, for example, who is found not guilty by reason of mental defect, sometimes that defendant never gets out of jail. (mental hosptial lock-up)

In a way, this is what Washington does with these people. And the prosecutor has to convince a jury that this defendant poses such a danger to the public that this action is necessary for the safety of the public. The public generally agrees that people who are totally wacko have to be kept in the hospital. It's the same thing with these guys. They don't operate on a mental level anything close to normal.

They are predators, the same as a lion creeping through the brush sneaking up on its next victim. But instead of pouncing on a zebra or something, they pounce on young boys and girls, or women. These victims have their lives scarred, usually forever. And society has not found the ultimate answer on how to deal with them. You can counsel them for years, keep them locked up for years, but if you let them out time and again they are right back at it.

After so many examples of this in Washington state, the people here just said 'enough'. Challenges to the civil commitment law here have withstood the legal challenges so far. These offenders really fall into a 'special' category, and even 'regular' criminals are as disgusted with them as law-abiding citizens. They are as disturbed as a profoundly schitzophrenic killer, but in some ways even more dangerous to the public, because you have no warning since they can go through society and generally appear normal.

They are where they need to be. Cases of child rape are down in Washington. These guys know if you get caught here, it could end up as a life sentence living in a place much like Alcatraz, at least in location. The SCC is three miles out into Puget Sound, and that is exactly where Kevin Coe needs to be - for the rest of his life.

Your central argument seems to be that nothing can be done to reduce the risk because these guys are atavistic animals.

Evidence (in the form of a 90% recidivism rate and intensification of offenses after incarceration) suggests that prison releases should be reduced or eliminated on all violent criminals. For this to be true implies that all violent criminals are incorrigible and are in the same boat as sexual predators.

This seems to soothe the conscience until you find out that in cases where a murderer knows the victim, they are most likely to NEVER murder again...

Recidivism rate is about 50-60%. For sexual predators, this figure is much higher.

George - you really ought to research the difference between a criminal trial and a civil hearing... As correct as you are about double jeopardy being unconstitutional - it does not apply here.. It is unconstitutional in a criminal trial - but a civil hearing is completely different.. Also in a civil hearing the statute of limitations does not appply..

With all due respect. Not everyone has money to burn like O.J. Trials cost. No matter how these smooth talking lawyers twist it, it cost allot. Do public defenders make as much as prosecutors? Most people can`t afford it.

I have a big problem with committing someone to a mental institution for "uncontrollable urges" to rape after sending him to prison. If he truly can't stop himself then he never should have been convicted... he should have been institutionalized 25 years ago. The police and the DA do not get to have it both ways... either someone is insane or they are not. If the DA insists on sending someone to prison, then as far as I'm concerned that person has been declared sane as a matter of law. The DA doesn't get to go back later and say "oops, he's really crazy."

If someone is truly a pathological rapist who can not stop, do NOT send them to prison. Send them to an institution, where they will remain locked up until cured or dead (or too old to rape anyone). I don't want to see this man hurt anyone else, but I'm even more concerned about the precedent this sort of thing sets. The mentally ill need treatment, or at least humane incarceration if they can not be cured, not prison. The only way to force prosecutors to let them have such treatment is to insure that they can not be committed after their prison term, because DAs generally would rather send someone to prison than an institution, even if they KNOW the person is not competent. Guilty verdicts look better in the press than not guilty by reason of insanity. The fact is that if Kevin Coe is really insane, he is also a victim here. He's sick, not evil... and should never have been sent to prison. And if he's not insane, then the prosecution is trying to unjustly commit him because they don't like the fact that rape doesn't result in life without parole. Either they knowingly convicted an insane man and sent him to prison for 25 years or they are knowingly trying to commit a sane criminal because that's easier than trying to get tougher rape sentences. I find either case despicable.

And yes, I'd prefer that Coe remain locked up. But there is a bigger picture here: the integrity of the legal process. This may not be double jeopardy in the strict legal sense, but it certainly is in spirit. The law needs to be absolute... if you are sentenced to 25 years in prison then after 25 years yo go free. Period. Trying to use civil commitments to extend a prison term is the sort of questionable practice that leads to a very slippery slope... and that slope ends in things far worse than rape. I guarantee that if such practices become commonplace, then prosecutors will push it further. And further. Until it isn't just rapists and murderers committed for life, but anyone the state finds inconvenient. It happened in Russia, and it can one day happen here if we let it. And the best way to avoid that is to not start down that path at all...

Van Ward says:

'Why isn't there a picture of the alleged rapist associated with this article? Is it because he's a scion of a "clean-cut son of a newspaper editor and a socialite mother" (white)? And before you make any comments, I AM WHITE.'

There are plenty of pictures of him out there in current newspaper articles regarding this case, and in these articles they also put up the old ones for comparison. His 'socialite mother' was convicted of trying to have the judge killed, too.

How could that possibly matter? The argument is not "we're keeping him in prison because he is guilty of a crime", the argument is "we are serving the public welfare by segregating a dangerous person from society".