Nothing like it existed when the ominously named Sexually Violent Predator Act was passed in 1998.

The dispute on the Court came over how to characterize the confinement imposed on Leroy Hendricks, the first person to whom the state had applied its new Sexually Violent Predator Act.

That result is about what was contemplated by the Sexually Violent Predator Act, one of 16 such state laws enacted around the nation in the last decade.

With this decision, the court did not so much make new law as it refined and explained its ruling in a 1997 case that also concerned the Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act.

Plaintiffs were all involuntarily civilly confined at FCCC pursuant to the Sexually Violent Predator Act 394.910, et seq.

But the court's initial decision did not spell out how, consistent with the constitutional requirements of due process, individuals were to be selected for the indefinite confinement under the Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act.

Under Kansas's Sexually Violent Predator Act (Act), any person who, due to "mental abnormality" or "personality disorder", is likely to engage in "predatory acts of sexual violence" can be indefinitely confined.