The United States Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of statutes that permit the indefinite confinement of individuals adjudicated sexually violent predators (SVP). Judicial decisions rejecting a number of challenges to such statutes have occurred against the backdrop of a broader abandonment by the courts of a rights-based approach to mental health law. The fundamental issue that determines whether an individual will be confined under SVP statutes, and if so, for how long, is whether the individual presents a future risk of violence to others. Although the courts have the authority to reject such testimony from mental health professionals, they rarely do so. As a result, SVP hearings are sometimes marked by testimony that overstates the scientific utility of the risk instruments on which it is based; confuses probabilistic with individual likelihood of future risk; and characterizes certain individuals as untreatable as a matter of scientific fact rather than opinion. The result is the erosion of individual liberties and ultimately the credibility of testimony on future risk.
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