Coe: Inside the courtroom
Former prosecutors pleased
The people who prosecuted Kevin Coe in his criminal cases say they're happy with the jury's decision in his civil commitment trial.
"I think they did the right thing," said former Spokane County Prosecutor Don Brockett.
He complimented the jurors for "sorting through all the evidence and making the determination they did," and state attorneys for "doing a great job of presenting the case to the jury."
And he had special praise for "Shelly Monahan, Julie Harmia and the other victims who had the courage to come back into court and testify."
Steve Matthews, a former deputy prosecutor who replaced Brockett for Coe's second criminal trial - because Brockett had been the target of a murder-for-hire plot by Coe's mother, Ruth - said he was "not terribly surprised, but very pleased" by the verdict.
Told that jurors questioned Coe's credibility, just as juries did after the criminal trials, Matthews said: "He hurts himself. He's never done anything to accept any responsiblity, or mitigate his conduct.
"I think that makes him scary."
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Kevin Coe, labeled the "South Hill rapist" in a community frightened by dozens of attacks on women in the Spokane area in the late 1970s and early 1980s, has been in prison since 1981. He was slated for release in September 2006 when the Washington state attorney general's office moved to have Coe spend the rest of his life in prison through the civil commitment program. In this trial, the state seeks to convince jurors that Coe represents too much of a threat to ever be released.
Karen Dorn Steele has been a Spokesman-Review reporter since 1982,
covering the courts, environment, enterprise and investigative beat. She
lived in Spokane in 1980 when a series of unsolved rapes terrorized the
city. 
Rick Bonino has worked at The Spokesman-Review in various positions
since 1977. He covered both of Kevin Coe's previous trials, in 1981 and
1985, and also Ruth Coe's trial in 1982. 
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