JIM LEHRER: We go first tonight to the Supreme Court argument on sexual predators. The case comes from Kansas, where five-time convicted child molester LeRoy Hendricks remains behind bars even though he has completed his criminal sentences. He was found to be mentally abnormal and dangerous. Under the Kansas Sexually Violent Predators Act, that’s enough to prevent his release. He’s challenging the constitutionality of the legislation. NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, legal correspondent for The American Lawyer and Legal Times, covered the hearing today. Stuart, welcome. First, how does this Kansas law actually work?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: It states that after a convicted sex offender, sexual predator, finishes his term, or as he’s about to finish his term, the prosecutor can go to the court and say this man is still dangerous, he’s got a mental abnormality that makes him a continuing threat to commit sexually violent acts, in particular to children in this case, and we want him locked up indefinitely, as long as he’s dangerous. And he has a right to a jury trial, and if a jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that he’s got a mental abnormality, not to be confused, by the way, with a mental illness in the traditional sense, and that he’s likely to continue molesting children or committing sexually violent acts because of it, he can be confined in a "mental institution" for so long as that remains the case, or until he can come in and prove that he’s no longer ill or dangerous.

JIM LEHRER: Do there have to be repeat offenses, or can this happen after just one?