Coe, lawyers reach deal on arousal test

Attorneys reached a verbal agreement Friday allowing South Hill rapist Kevin Coe to avoid both contempt of court and the requirement that he submit to an evaluation of his arousal levels to images of forced sex.

However, as part of the agreement, the jury that will determine if Coe ever walks free again will be instructed by the judge to infer that the 60-year-old Coe “is deviantly aroused by forcible non-consensual sexual contact with adult females,” Assistant Attorney General Malcolm Ross said.

“It’s not final until the judge signs it,” Ross said.

Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor is expected on Monday to receive the written agreement, which would eliminate the need to hold a contempt of court hearing on Wednesday for Coe’s previous refusal to take the court-ordered penile plethysmograph.

In that evaluation, clinical and forensic psychologist Dr. Amy Phenix would have had Coe watch explicit videos depicting violent rape, pornography and consensual sex to measure his arousal levels.

O’Connor gave defense attorney Tim Trageser until the end of the day Friday to give her an answer about whether Coe would take the test.

Trageser was held in contempt of court on Thursday for interfering with Phenix’s interview of Coe in July. Contradicting Ross, Trageser said the proposed agreement has no such requirement that the jury must infer that Coe is a sexual deviant.

“We have come to a happy medium that does not direct the jury to make any inference,” Trageser said.

Trageser refused to relay his understanding of the wording of the agreement because he said he didn’t want O’Connor to read about the proposal in the newspaper.

But Ross, who was driving back to Seattle late Friday, relayed in an interview what he remembered the agreement as saying.

“It says that (Coe) was ordered to do a comprehensive sexually violent predator evaluation, which required among other things that he submit to a penile plethysmograph test,” Ross said. “Mr. Coe refused to take part in that test. And the court found that he had no lawful basis for refusing. Because he refused, Dr. Phenix was denied relevant information about his sexual arousal pattern. And because he refused, you the jury may infer that he is deviantly aroused to forcible, non-consensual sexual contact with adult females.”

The agreement is just the latest twist in a complex legal effort to civilly commit Coe as a sexually violent predator.

Phenix previously testified in court that she believes Coe was responsible for 53 sexual attacks. Spokane police detectives linked him to 43 rapes from 1978 to 1981, and he was convicted of four of those cases.

However, appellate judges threw out three of the convictions because of police interviewing techniques, leaving Coe with a single rape conviction. He served 25 years on that single conviction until last year when his release was put on hold while the state completes the civil trial.

At that trial, scheduled for next March, prosecutors hope to present 40 previously uncharged sexual assaults to a jury that will decide if Coe goes free, Assistant Attorney General Todd Bowers said Thursday.

Trageser has said that the defense team will force the state to have a mini-trial for every one of those 40 allegations.

As for the agreement on the jury instructions, both attorneys said O’Connor can accept their proposal or make up her own jury instructions.

“The judge ordered this” test, Trageser said. “It’s not automatic that the judge is going to agree to it.”