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Opinion of the Court
ment, to confine him to a mental institution until such time as he has regained his sanity or is no longer a danger to himself or society." Jones, 463 U. S., at 368, 370.5 The court below was in error in characterizing the above language from Jones as merely an interpretation of the pertinent statutory law in the District of Columbia and as having no constitutional significance. In this case, Louisiana does not contend that Foucha was mentally ill at the time of the trial court's hearing. Thus, the basis for holding Foucha in a psychiatric facility as an insanity acquittee has disappeared, and the State is no longer entitled to hold him on that basis. O'Connor, supra, at 574-575.
The State, however, seeks to perpetuate Foucha's confinement at Feliciana on the basis of his antisocial personality which, as evidenced by his conduct at the facility, the court found rendered him a danger to himself or others. There are at least three difficulties with this position. First, even if his continued confinement were constitutionally permissible, keeping Foucha against his will in a mental institution is improper absent a determination in civil commitment proceedings of current mental illness and dangerousness. In Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480 (1980), we held that a convicted felon serving his sentence has a liberty interest, not extinguished by his confinement as a criminal, in not being transferred to a mental institution and hence classified as men-5 Justice Thomas, dissenting, suggests that there was no issue of the standards for release before us in Jones. The issue in that case, however, was whether an insanity acquittee "must be released because he has been hospitalized for a period longer than he might have served in prison had he been convicted," 463 U. S., at 356; and in the course of deciding that issue in the negative, we said that the detainee could be held until he was no longer mentally ill or no longer dangerous, regardless of how long a prison sentence might have been. We noted in footnote 11 that Jones had not sought a release based on nonillness or nondangerousness, but as indicated in the text, we twice announced the outside limits on the detention of insanity acquittees. The Justice would "wish" away this aspect of Jones, but that case merely reflected the essence of our prior decisions.
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