State Supreme Court Hears Sexual Predator Cases

State Supreme Court judges now must decide whether the only Missouri woman found to be a violent sexual predator will stay confined to a mental health facility. The Court has heard three sexually violent predator cases. One involves Angela Coffel. Her attorney, Assistant Public Defender Emmett Queener, tells the judges there isn’t enough medical evidence to determine whether women can be diagnosed as sexual predators. Assistant Attorney General Andrea Spillars agrees in part. But Spillars says the caseshouldn’t turn on the medical evidence for woman in general, but the evidence gathered against Coffel in particular. Coffel pleaded guilty to two counts of sodomy in 1996. A judge found her to be a sexually violentpredator, the first time a woman had been ruled such since the state enacted the law.