Leroy Hendricks had done his time. In August 1994, after serving 10 years for taking "indecent liberties" with two 13-year-old boys, Hendricks walked out of prison in Hutchinson, Kans.--and was almost immediately transported to the Larned Correctional Mental Health Facility, where he has been locked up ever since. Under a 1994 state law called the Sexually Violent Predator Act, a judge ordered Hendricks confined indefinitely after ruling that his "mental abnormality" made him likely to attack again. Hendricks challenged the constitutionality of that law, but last week, in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld it.
Hendricks is just the kind...